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PICTURE OF THE DIARIST 
Taken in Ocean City, September, 1913 



SEASIDE SCENES and THOUGHTS 

SOME EXTRACTS FROM A DIARY 

ORIGINALLY SELECTED AND EDITED FOR "THE 

SPRINGFIELD (MASS.) REPUBLICAN," AND 

NOW DONE INTO A BOOK 

BY 

WALTER WILDER 



BOSTON 

PRESS OF GEO. H. ELLIS CO. 

I9I4 



.LU / l/\/ Lo 



With complimenls of the Jluihor 






^ 



"I 

^ 

"^ INTRODUCTION. 

When the diarial extracts which form the 
contents of this little Book were first printed 
in the columns of the Sunday and Weekly 
editions of ^'The Springfield Republican," it 
was far from the diarist's expectation that 
they ever would reappear before the public 
in any other form; but a few friends, known 
and unknown to the writer, having ex- 
pressed a low-voiced yet insistent desire that 
the extracts should be gathered into a book, 
he has handed them over to the printer — 
and here they are again. The edition of 
them in this form is a very limited one, yet 
the writer's definite expectation is that it will 
be fully sufhcient to supply the demand. 

There is no pretension in the mind of the 
diarist that he has here written anything 
which will prove to be of more than passing 
value. The following pages contain only 
the reports and thoughts of an old man 

iii 



INTRODUCTION 

who is keenly sympathetic with his fellow- 
men, especially with the juvenile portion of 
them. It is all plain and easy reading, of 
just what he saw, made a note of, and thought 
about; and this new presentation of the 
matter is offered to the reader with unaffected 
modesty on the part of 

Walter Wilder. 
June, 19 14. 



IV 



SEASIDE SCENES AND THOUGHTS. 

SOME LEAVES FROM A DIARY. 



I. 

June 12, 1913.—I took the 3 o'clock elec- 
tric car from L. to Boston this afternoon, 
en route to Ocean City, NJ. Leslie met 
me by appointment in the city and accom- 
panied me to Battery Wharf, where I was 
to board the steamer for Philadelphia. He 
had previously bought my ticket and en- 
gaged my stateroom,— an outer room, with 
two berths. Fortunately for me, the num- 
ber of passengers bound for the same port 
with myself was small (about forty), so that 
I was able, without extra expense, to have 
my nice stateroom all to myself,— a special 
privilege which despoiled no one, though it 
inured to my sole benefit. The steamer, 
the Grecian, was late in starting, so LesHe 
decided not to wait to see me sail, but bade 
me good-by and returned to his office. (A 



SEASIDE SCENES AND THOUGHTS 

good business man is always economical of 
his time.) It was half-past 5 before we got 
under way, and moved slowly down the har- 
bor amidst pragmatic tugboats and placid 
islands. (It was Professor Huxley who said 
if he couldn't be Thomas H. Huxley he 
would rather be a tugboat than anything 
else.) When we had once got out to sea, 
our pace quickened. There was a stiff 
breeze blowing from the shore, which knocked 
up the sea, and we kept well out from dis- 
reputable Cape Cod. Though not sick, I 
experienced a mild ventral dissatisfaction, 
which was a Httle augmented by seeing a 
palefaced boy suddenly lean over the rail 
for rehef. I put a good supper down on my 
uneasiness and smoked a cigar. Then I 
turned in early and slept like a top. 

June 15.— Though the ocean roads are 
well sprinkled and dustless, they have one 
serious discomfort with which land roads 
are less affected. This is fog, which not 
only shuts out the sea view, so impressive 
to every appreciative ocean traveler, but 
which adds a danger dreaded by both offi- 
cers and passengers. Sometimes it was im- 



SEASIDE SCENES AND THOUGHTS 

possible to see ten rods ahead of us or around 
us. Nearly all day long the steamer's hoarse 
and solemn foghorn pealed forth its warn- 
ing into the shrouded space of ocean and sky 
once in every sixty seconds, and continued 
to do so long into the night. I fancy that 
every man, however enlightened he may 
think himself to be, carries about with him 
at least one, or half of one, superstition; and 
I confess that, as my nerves were jangled 
out of tune by the growling monitor over- 
head, I couldn't help remembering that this 
was Friday, the 13th day of June, 1913. 

There is an extraordinary preponderance 
of young folks, mostly girls, among our 
passengers; but as the girls are for the most 
part fresh and fair, I feel quite reconciled 
to their majority number. Two of the 
prettiest of them sit directly opposite to me 
at table. One of them is the whitest girl I 
ever saw. Her hair, her eyebrows and eye- 
lashes, and her face look as if they had been 
bleached. At first I thought she must be 
an albino; but her eyes were heavenly blue, 
her lips were a rich red, and she had a mild 
and lovely expression. When I asked her 

3 



SEASIDE SCENES AND THOUGHTS 

to pass me the bread, she not only passed 
me that, but she gave me a smile so sweet 
that I entirely forgot what I had asked for. 
It is Walter Savage Landor who says that it 
is a sure sign that a man is growing old when 
he begins to like girls; but that cannot apply 
to me, for I always lik:ed them. 

This has been a monotonous day, with 
*' nothing doing;" so I go to bed early to- 
night, turn over on my hearing ear to shut 
out the voice of the lofty growler, think of all 
my loved ones, and — think and fear no more. 

June 14. — The fog attended us up Dela- 
ware River, even to the gates of the Quaker 
city; but before we had made fast to the 
wharf the sun had burned it all away, and 
ushered in fair and warm weather. The 
passengers debarked at 8 o'clock this morn- 
ing in good health and spirits, notwith- 
standing the fateful omens of day and date. 
It is interesting to see girls take leave of one 
another, — interesting and sometimes just 
a bit exasperating. They generally do it 
with repeated embraces and kisses, making 
a solitary and soft-hearted old man feel 
somewhat extraneous. The dear things can't 



SEASIDE SCENES AND THOUGHTS 

help acting so, "for 'tis their nature to/^ 
and for my part I wouldn't have them do 
otherwise for anything. The pulchritude 
of this hard-rubbing world is not so excessive 
in quantity as to make me willing to dimin- 
ish or veil it in the least, especially when it 
is contributed to by the innocence and spon- 
taneity of youth. 

Carl met me at the office of the Merchants 
and Miners Transportation Company, pi- 
loted me across the ferry to Camden and 
aboard the train to Ocean City. He, too, 
is a business man, and had to "tear himself 
asunder" to do all this; but I reckon that in 
the great exchequer of life he doesn't expect 
any loss to come of it. 

The house in Ocean City to which its dear 
little mistress gives me warm welcome is 
situated near the beach, there being only an 
avenue and the boardwalk between it and 
the rolling surf. Every room in the house, 
except the kitchen, commands a fine view of 
the sea, and is filled with the solemn music 
of its rote by night and by day. 

June i§. — Carl takes us all down to Cape 
May this afternoon in a big automobile, 

5 



SEASIDE SCENES AND THOUGHTS 

with a professional chauffeur to drive it. 
Cape May is something over forty miles from 
Ocean City, almost directly south. As every- 
body knows, Cape May is one of the most 
fashionable watering resorts in this country, 
much favored by General Grant when he was 
president. I don't know how old it is in 
fashion's favor, but I used to hear about it 
when I was a boy, which seems centuries 
ago. I had never visited it before, and was 
glad of the opportunity to do so now. Its 
beach and surf are magnificent, and its board- 
walk is miles and miles long. There are some 
elegant villas at its court end, and one palatial 
hotel, where you can spend a whole lot of 
money just for eating and sleeping. But 
Cape May is at a standstill now. Its bloom 
has been taken off by other south Jersey coast- 
resorts which have come into vogue later, 
especially Atlantic City. The country lead- 
ing to it is as flat and level as a parlor floor, 
very monotonous and uninteresting. Fully 
half of New Jersey is like this, only the north- 
ern part of the State being broken up into 
hills. But this flat portion has a network 
of excellent roads, which are prevailingly 

6 



SEASIDE SCENES AND THOUGHTS 

straight, broad, and well founded. The 
vegetable productions are chiefly corn and 
potatoes; its fruits, peaches and melons and 
grapes. The houses are mostly small and 
plain, lacking paint. Its inhabitants, many 
of them colored (one whole village being com- 
posed solely of Negroes), find their principal 
occupation in raising ^'gard'n sass" for the 
temporary seashore folk. 

June i6. — ^Another sortie into the flat 
portion of New Jersey by automobile, this 
time to Sea Isle City, one of the many sea- 
side resorts of this region, to which steam cars 
and electric lines lead. Again I am impressed 
by the excellent quaHty of the roads running 
in every direction through this salt-marsh 
country. One spins through many small 
villages here and there, most uninviting in 
aspect. How anybody can bear to live in 
them, surrounded by marshes and assailed 
by Jersey ''skeeters," is past understanding 
except on the presumption that somebody 
must live everywhere. We passed a swamp 
full of magnolia blossoms, and our chauffeur 
risked being stuck in it to gather a big bunch 
of these blooms for us. I fancy he did it 

7 



SEASIDE SCENES AND THOUGHTS 

because a pretty girl asked for them. We 
saw several catalpa trees in blossom, and the 
red-rambler rose was growing in front of 
many a small unpainted house. The for- 
estation of this part of New Jersey is pine and 
oak," — the latter of sapling growth, being the 
recent successor of the former. Where soil 
has accumulated on marsh it is composed of 
sand, and more sand, and then again sand. 

June i8. — The cooler weather following a 
hot spell has given the atmosphere a crystal 
clearness, dissipating all the haziness of these 
last few days. The ocean view has been 
much improved by this change, and is now 
fine and inspiring. 

One of Ocean City's star features is an 
aeroplane, which makes almost daily ascen- 
sions. Mr. Gray (he isn't gray at all, but a 
young man), the aviator, is regularly estab- 
lished here, having his machine housed in a 
rough board-shanty on the beach close to the 
boardwalk. He is prepared to give a com- 
plete course of instruction in aviation, and 
takes passengers skyward in his machine 
at twenty-five dollars apiece, but doesn't 
guarantee to save the pieces. I have seen 

8 



SEASIDE SCENES AND THOUGHTS 

him fly on two different occasions, and he 
does it as gracefully as a bird flies. I am more 
than willing that others should fly with him, 
but as for myself I have no desire to venture 
into the air until I have real wings of my own. 
Carl's homecoming each night is the event 
of the whole day to our little household; 
for, in appearance at least, he always leaves 
behind him in the big city all his office cares 
and bothers. Fortunately, he is of a hopeful 
and sanguine temperament. It takes a 
great deal to discourage him. I have never 
seen him floored yet, albeit he has had two 
or three hard blows. He stays in the ring 
and fights as long as there is any antagonist 
to stand up against him. The battle joy is 
in his veins, and, like Job's horse, he says 
"Ha,, ha!" when he hears the call to con- 
flict. 'Tis a sorry chance in life for any man 
who is signally lacking in this spirit; for, say 
what we will in praise of the gentle virtues, 
the mailed hand is often needed to smite 
down unfair opposition. Life itself is a battle, 
not a dream, and every man who would not 
be beaten in it must be clothed with the soldier 
ardor. 



SEASIDE SCENES AND THOUGHTS 

— It is safe to say that more than half of 
mankind have no resources in themselves 
for happiness. They are imprisoned in their 
own personalities, and would die of inanity 
but for the assistance which others bring to 
them. Uncompanioned in themselves, they 
seek companionship in the world of excite- 
ment; and when the end comes, they leave 
an empty shell behind them — like these I see 
on the beach here. 

June 20. — I pass a couple of hours down on 
the beach this morning with my pipe and 
"The Weekly Springfield Republican." The 
news was a week old, but as I had waited a 
week for it I enjoyed reading it. I would 
rather have a week-old "Republican" than 
any day-old other paper I know, because by 
waiting I get my news well winnowed. If the 
world comes to an end some time when I am 
waiting, I know that "The Republican" will 
give me "the news and the truth about it." 

June 21. — It is fascinating to watch the 
mad gambol of the waves as they come 
tumbling and crashing in from far away 
yonder and roll thundering up the sloping 
beach. They seem instinct with life, acting 

lO 



SEASIDE SCENES AND THOUGHTS 

as if they were intent on achieving some pur- 
pose which they deHberately minded and 
thoroughly enjoyed, and this wholly regard- 
less of my spell in watching them. They 
get a good start, as we boys say, far off there 
on the watery plain (it may be as far back as 
Africa), piling up as they advance a briny 
wall three or four feet high, black and formi- 
dable, apparently having force enough to 
reach and dislodge me from my present 
point of observation; but though enlarging 
and lengthening as they come on, their ea- 
gerness defeats itself. Suddenly their serried 
columns tremble; a shiver of apprehension 
seems to run through all their ranks; a 
white spray of fear glances along the crest 
of the black wall; it hesitates an instant, 
breaks, and then down it tumbles in tumult- 
uous confusion — only, however, to rise again, 
and, pushed on by recruiting forces behind, 
to plunge recklessly forward with shattered 
momentum and spent power, until finally 
it has only strength enough left to obey the 
recall of the sea, and slides back to its original 
base. 

Another aspect of the gamboling waves 

II 



SEASIDE SCENES AND THOUGHTS 

is seen when the tide is low. Then their 
impetus is much less, but the apparent 
spirit of fun in them is even more rollick- 
ing, as if they felt themselves unwatched by 
their stern commander. Now as they come 
rolling in they seem to be playing leapfrog to- 
gether. They climb over one another's backs 
and roll over in one another's arms, each 
scrambling to outdo the other in reaching 
the strand first. I seem to hear them shout 
with glee at the merry sport they are having, 
forgetting for the time the grim and mighty 
main behind them, out of which they came 
and to which they must return; forgetting 
also that every one of them is enslaved to the 
imperial moon, held fast in her strong leash, 
which pulls them back and forth between 
Afric's sands and America's shores. 

Thus these wild waves have rolled and 
roared, sung and sported, thousands upon 
thousands of years, when no human eye or 
ear was present either to see or listen to them. 
What a startling thought is this ! How small 
and transient it makes us seem in comparison 
with the mighty and ancient forces of Nature! 
In our holiday mood we had almost come to 

12 



SEASIDE SCENES AND THOUGHTS 

believe that this dazzling spectacle of the sea 
was a part of the entertainment for which we 
had paid our vacation money, gotten up for 
our special delectation; but now we are stag- 
gered by the reflection that Nature performs 
not for us, but for herself. ''Before Abraham 
was, I am," she thunders at us. ''Before 
you had eyes to see or ears to hear, I was busy 
with my own great tasks. You are an in- 
cident; I am a permanent. I shall remain 
after you are swept into oblivion." 

June 22. — We have a fairly steady pro- 
cession past our house every day of men, 
women, and children to and from the board- 
walk and the beach. Some of them are mere 
promenaders, while others are bathers. 
There being no bath-houses on the beach (a 
wise inhibition in behalf of the freedom of 
the beach), the bathers have to undress and 
redress in their own cottages, and walk 
through the streets going and returning. 
Some of them are decidedly attractive in their 
bathing suits, particularly the children and 
girls in their "teens," while others present 
anything but a pleasing appearance. There 
is a conventional immodesty as well as a con- 

13 



SEASIDE SCENES AND THOUGHTS 

ventional modesty in personal garbing, and 
both are conspicuously in evidence at every 
seaside resort. What is suitable to the occa- 
sion and becoming to the wearer can easily 
escape criticism, but what is otherwise must 
take its chances of being sent to Coventry. 

June 24. — The municipality of Ocean City 
was founded thirty-three years ago by the 
Ocean City Association. Previous to that 
the island had been bought by three brothers 
who bore the name of Lake. They were 
Methodists, although sired by a Quaker, 
and they laid out a portion of the island at the 
north end as a camp-meeting site, to which 
came annually many of that loud-voiced 
denomination for prayer and praise — and 
they continue yet to assemble here in August 
of every year. But though on religion bent, 
the brothers Lake had in them *'a frugal 
mind," becoming convinced that here was an 
excellent opportunity for profit as well as 
for worship, for riches which could be treas- 
ured in this world no less than for such as it 
is alleged can be "laid up" in the next. A 
business association was formed, which took 
over all of the island except the camp-meet- 

14 



SEASIDE SCENES AND THOUGHTS 

ing ground, and they proceeded to exploit 
their possession by selling lots to individual 
owners. They have done this so success- 
fully, that, from a single farmhouse thirty- 
two years ago, they now have a muni- 
cipality which in 191 2 had a valuation of over 
$8,000,000, and which is now increasing at the 
rate of nearly $1,000,000 a year, — a fairly 
neat result of combining worldly prudence 
with unworldly piety. It is claimed, and ap- 
parently with justice, that the prohibition of 
objectionable features, such as the sale of 
intoxicating liquors, has kept the city so 
clean morally that it is a haven of safety 
for wives, mothers, and children while the 
heads of families are attending to their busi- 
ness in the big city during the day. 

Ocean City is situated on an island eight 
miles long and less than half that wide. It 
was formerly known as Peck's Beach. It is 
sixty-five miles south of Philadelphia and 
forty-two miles south of Atlantic City. Be- 
ing on an island, both the front door and 
back door of Ocean City open out on a water- 
scape, — the Atlantic Ocean on the east, 
and Great Egg Harbor (called the Back Bay) 

15 



SEASIDE SCENES AND THOUGHTS 

on the west. Elegant villas adorn both 
sides, and also the north end. The sewer- 
age system of the city is excellent, and no 
filth is apparent anywhere; indeed, the city 
from end to end has a remarkably clean ap- 
pearance. No stables are allowed to be 
built on the streets, and automobiles and 
motor trucks are so numerous that horse 
vehicles are the exception. The city is ex- 
clusively lighted by electricity, electric bulbs 
and gas stoves being in all the better-class 
houses. Ocean City is particularly favored 
in its water supply, having a fresh water 
river eight hundred feet below its surface, 
which it taps with artesian shafts, and from 
which it gets an unfailing quantity of pure, 
soft water. 

June 27. — Being unfamiliar with this little 
city I have to ask some questions anent di- 
rection, locality, etc. To-day I wanted to 
find the post-office, and stepped into a ga- 
rage for information. The man I accosted 
was bareheaded, barearmed, and somewhat 
grimy; but though driven with work he 
kindly stopped and came out on the side- 
walk with me, and pointing down the avenue 

16 



SEASIDE SCENES AND THOUGHTS 

said, ''Go ahead till you come to Eighth 
Street, then turn to the left — No, damn 
it! that ain't right; turn to the right, and the 
post-office ain't fur away." I thanked him, 
and said, ''In finding our way through life 
it is almost always safer to turn to the right, 
don't you think?" He looked at me con- 
fusedly for an instant, and then, smiling, 
said, "Well, I reckon that's so." 

This little incident reminds me that I once 
had the honor and pleasure of entertaining 
at my house the distinguished English radi- 
cal, George Jacob Holyoake. We were talk- 
ing together in the parlor when supper was 
announced. Just at that moment I was 
summoned to the front door by a caller. Not 
wishing to detain Mr. Holyoake in the hall, 
and knowing that my wife was in the dining- 
room waiting for us, I said to him, "Please 
don't wait for me," and directing him how to 
proceed, I turned to attend to my transient 
caller. Almost the next moment I had fol- 
lowed my guest, and entered the dining- 
room soon enough to hear him say to my 
wife, "Your husband has just given me the 
best counsel I ever had in all my long and 

17 



SEASIDE SCENES AND THOUGHTS 

eventful life. In directing me to you he told 
me to ' follow the Light and turn to the Right/ 
and here I am in your gracious presence." 
Mr. Holyoake was no courtier; he had been 
a toiler and a soldier in many a cause for the 
economic welfare and intellectual enlighten- 
ment of the people, having once suffered 
actual imprisonment for 'Menymg the gods," 
as was said of Socrates; but he was a most 
genial and warm-hearted man, and had a 
keen sense of humor. 

June 28.— 1 have begun the habit of tak- 
ing a long morning walk on the beach before 
breakfast, which walk I thoroughly enjoy. 
Generally I have few competitors in these 
saunterings, sometimes none at all. I enjoy 
the beach more in the early morning, when 
it is less frequented by the cottagers, and 
when the mystery of the sea is undiluted by 
the garishness of the fuller day. 

June 2p.— There is a wrecked ship nearly 
a mile down the beach from our house which 
appeals strongly to my sympathetic interest, 
and thither my steps in the early morning 
often turn. It was driven ashore here not 
long ago, and is now slowly going to pieces 

18 



SEASIDE SCENES AND THOUGHTS 

under the continuous bombardment of the 
heavy surf. How many human lives are 
like her in their sad fate ! I must learn more 
about her history from some dependable 
source, and not trust to the floating rumors 
about her which so decry her commander. 

June 50. — My ante-breakfast walk this 
morning took me again to the wrecked ship 
in which I have such a sad interest. A hu- 
man quality attaches to her, making her fate 
pathetic in my eyes. I can easily fancy that 
she regards me with mournful silence, mutely 
appealing to me for sympathy with her un- 
happy lot. The sight of her oppresses and 
yet fascinates me. 

The fashions of feminine apparel are on 
complete exhibition in Ocean City this sum- 
mer. So far I have not seen the slit skirt, 
but the absence of this latest revealer of the 
charms of the fair sex has not prevented my 
seeing some other things. The present 
fashion of woman's garments comes as near 
to wearing trousers as the presence of skirts 
will allow. When there is no petticoat, or 
only a very thin one, worn under the gown, 
as in the hottest days appears not infre- 

19 



SEASIDE SCENES AND THOUGHTS 

quently to be the case; and when the gown 
itself is smartly hobbled, and is moreover 
composed of a diaphanous material and de- 
pendent from the modern corset, — when this 
combination of ingenious feminine enrobing 
occurs, it must be confessed that the sub- 
torso anatomy of the wearer is distinctly 
revealing. But what then? Certainly 
nothing which need alarm any one, much 
less necessarily demoralize either the seen 
or the seer. When these same girls and 
women go in bathing, their skirts are decid- 
edly short and their blouses very low in the 
neck; but nobody, not even the staidest, 
objects. Why? Because it is the universal 
custom and altogether suitable. The men 
bathers are even more exposed in their per- 
sons. Their necks, arms, legs, feet, are all 
bare; and in this semi-nude condition they 
not only sport familiarly with the girls and 
women in the water, sit and lounge side by 
side with them on the beach, but walk with 
them through the streets to and from their 
houses — and again nobody thinks of criti- 
cizing a universal and suitable custom. The 
vogue settles the question of propriety, and 

20 



SEASIDE SCENES AND THOUGHTS 

the publicity of it silences suspicion. If one 
were to do it alone, or two were to do it on 
the sly, criticism might be justified; but 
where they all dress so and sport so, and do 
so openly, it would seem that only they who 
have prurient or austere minds will make 
an outcry against it. What is better and 
even safer than modesty, is innocent self- 
imconsciousness. Would that we might all 
keep this charming quality from childhood 
even into old age! 



II. 

July I. — On my beach walk this morn- 
ing I counted nine craft on the far margin 
of the sea. The sky was crystalline in its 
purity, and the air was sweet and bracing. 
I felt so kindled in spirit that I sang softly 
to myself ^'The Rose of Allandale," begin- 
ning,— 

"The morn was fair, the sky was clear, 
No breath came o'er the sea, " — 

and then I repeated Byron's fine sonnet to 
the ocean, — 

21 



SEASIDE SCENES AND THOUGHTS 

"Roll on, thou deep and dark blue ocean, roll! 
Ten thousand fleets sweep over thee in vain," etc. 

These ante-breakfast walks are a great 
thing for me. They begin the day in just 
the right way, keying up the tone of my 
mind to the proper pitch. Our dog Dick 
always teases to go with me on these walks, 
and I should be only too glad to have him if 
he would but obey my recall after scampering 
off to speak to some other dog. But he has 
not yet accepted me as an authority whom he 
is bound to heed, and as he is a valuable dog 
I don't dare to risk the loss of him. It hurts 
me to see his reproachful eyes following me 
as I walk off without him. I have tried to 
state the case fairly to him, but he so far 
refuses to admit that I have any higher 
motive for leaving him behind than obduracy. 
He is much mistaken, for I like dogs, and hope 
sometime to convince him of that fact. 

Last evening I strolled up the boardwalk 
with Ottilie and Fred,* as far as the music 

♦The person denominated "Fred" in these diarial extracts is not a 
boy, but a girl. As, however, she is as frolicsome and athletic as any 
healthy boy, and one of her names being Frederica, the diarist humor- 
ously christened her Fred. 



22 



SEASIDE SCENES AND THOUGHTS 

pavilion, where we sat for an hour or more 
listening to some fine music by an excellent 
band. This band is employed for the season 
and paid by the city, thus giving free music 
to the cottagers. The audience was large 
and appreciative. 

July J. — I miss the vivid and avid com- 
panionship of my little grandchildren even 
more than I expected to. While walking on 
the beach this morning they were so much in 
my thoughts that I involuntarily uttered 
their names aloud, and then stopped and 
wrote those names in the sand with my 
cane, drawing a big circle around them. Of 
course, I knew that the rising tide would 
erase them in an hour or two; but it cannot 
wash them from my loving memory, and it 
was pleasing to me to see their dear names 
writ large before my eyes even for a few 
minutes. 

July 4. — I rose early for my walk this 
morning and heard only two modest fire- 
crackers announcing that this is the natal 
day of our nation. These were ''let off" by 
two bareheaded and barelegged urchins under 
the boardwalk, accompanied by a small dog 

23 



SEASIDE SCENES AND THOUGHTS 

and some broad grins. I shouted ''Bang!" 
as I heard the explosion, which sympathetic 
exclamation appeared to please the kiddies. 

The day has worn on with astonishingly 
little noise or garishness of any kind. A 
''safe and sane" Fourth this surely has been 
in Ocean City. I doubt if so much as an 
eyebrow has been singed or a finger-tip 
scorched on the whole of this island to-day. 
Yet there has been a constant movement 
among the thousands of people here all the 
day long. Countless automobiles have shot 
through the streets and broad avenues, 
some of them gayly adorned with fluttering 
banners; the boardwalk procession of loafers 
and lovers has never ceased; the bathers 
have paddled, dipped, and plunged by scores 
and hundreds ; the theaters and all the places 
of amusement have been filled to overflowing; 
the dear children have raced up and down 
the beach, and the sweet babies have royally 
ridden in their little chariots to and fro on 
the boardwalk. In the evening a few scat- 
tering and fizzing fireworks were all the dis- 
play we had in that line. Everybody has 
seemed to be happy, and nobody has been 

24 



SEASIDE SCENES AND THOUGHTS 

reckless or truculent. So far as I have ob- 
served or heard, not a thing has happened to 
tristitiate a single human heart among all 
this moving multitude. Heartily do I wish 
that the whole world might so move on, 
every day in every year; and it should, if I 
were its cosmic manager. I would not post- 
pone universal peace and bliss to some post- 
mortem day, but I would fill every human 
heart full with it, and light up every human 
face with a reflection of it, ''here below." 

July 5. — The sea doesn't hold the same 
aspect two hours at a time. Seldom is it 
crystally clear, giving us the seven-mile view 
of it to which we are entitled by the rotund- 
ity of the earth. Often fog wipes it out en- 
tirely, and only its never-silenced voice gives 
attestation of its existence. Then again it 
becomes dreamy and misty where it touches 
the eyelids of the stooping sky, as if the two 
were whispering secrets to each other too 
important and sacred for human ears to hear. 
I always feel when I am standing by the sea 
that it is a great Being with a soul in it, the 
vastness and depth of which I cannot pene- 
trate or divine. 

25 



SEASIDE SCENES AND THOUGHTS 

This evening I went with Carl and Ottilie 
to join the great procession on the board- 
walk. We hired two rolling-chairs, double 
and single, and trundled the whole distance 
to the northern end of the walk, where we 
could plainly see the glimmering lights on 
the boardwalk in Atlantic City, forty odd 
miles away by land. The boardwalk here 
as there is a kaleidoscopic midway stretch- 
ing its serpentine length between the city 
and the sea, full of brilliant lights, of challeng- 
ing shops, booths, and show-places, of play- 
ful children, fumiferous men, bonnie maidens, 
and staid matrons. I am in hearty sym- 
pathy with the whole tribe. 

July 6. — I spend much time in watching 
the children digging in the loose sand under 
the boardwalk, and the babies toddling along 
the beach. The sand-diggers scoop out deep 
holes with their toy shovels and build high 
walls around the excavation, fancying that 
they are forts to defend or to sally from. 
The martial spirit is as indigenous in boys 
as the sweets-loving taste is in girls. These 
fort-builders are dead in earnest in their 
occupation, which for the nonce seems to 

26 



SEASIDE SCENES AND THOUGHTS 

them as real and important as John D.'s oil 
wells or J, P.'s steel works seem to those 
millionaire magnates. The darling babies 
toddle down to the water's edge to throw in 
a pebble or a shell which they have picked 
up, being rescued by a nurse or a parent just 
in time to escape a foot-wetting by the on- 
coming wave as it slides rapidly up the 
gently sloping shore. This mimic devotion 
to earnest play goes on hour after hour and 
day after day, not only here but all over the 
earth; and the old man, whose days of toil 
are past, drops easily back again into sym- 
pathetic interest in childish ways and pas- 
times. 

July y. — There is a difference of more than 
twelve degrees between to-day's tempera- 
ture and yesterday's, a difference not wholly 
acceptable to me. I expect to be cool 
enough next January, and I don't ask simi- 
lar favors of July. Summer is the time for 
heat; why growl, then, because summer is 
hot? 

— 'Tis astonishing what an amount of un- 
dependable and even false information one 
can pick up from persons who are always 

27 



SEASIDE SCENES AND THOUGHTS 

SO willing to tell what they don't know. I 
have been obsessed by interest in the sad 
fate of the ship whose wrecked remains lie 
on the beach here, and I have tried to gather 
in her true story from such sporadic sources 
as sprang up in my path, not knowing of any 
authoritative source of information concern- 
ing her. The other day I called on the edi- 
tor of one of the local newspapers in this city, 
who is a clergyman, and he kindly gave me 
a copy of the *' Ocean City Directory and 
Handbook of Information" for 191 2. I took 
it home with me, and sat down to study it. 
Herein I find what may be regarded as an 
official account of the wreck, and a truthful 
expose of the many "ain't so's" which have 
been glibly told to me about it. 

First, the wreck occurred twelve years 
ago (December 21, 1901), not two years ago 
as reported to me. Second, no lives were 
lost ("a good many" were, it was given to 
me), but the whole crew of thirty-three men 
and officers (she carried no passengers) were 
rescued by the United States life-saving 
service established in Ocean City. Third, 
the captain was not drunk, as I was told he 

28 



SEASIDE SCENES AND THOUGHTS 

was, but was cool, self-possessed, and brave, 
the disaster to his ship being not by his fault 
at all, but by storm and darkness and the 
"lay of the land" off this local shore, — shoal 
water stretching out six or seven miles along 
this portion of the Jersey coast, and the slope 
seaward being very gradual and gentle. 
The captain's name was Allan McKenzie, 
and this was his first shipwreck in his thirty- 
five years of otherwise successful experience 
as a sailing-master in every quarter of the 
globe. (How I do love to see a good man 
exonerated from aspersion and blame!) 
Fourth, the ship's name was the Sindia, not 
Cynthia, as a man who didn't know told me. 
The keel of the Sindia was laid in Belfast, 
Ireland, in 1887, and she was fitted out as a 
steamship, being regarded as first among her 
class of steamers to be built in that harbor. 
After four years of service in British waters 
she was transformed into a four-masted sail- 
ing vessel, and began her world-wide career 
as a merchantman. Under Captain Mc- 
Kenzie, who had built her, she sailed over 
two hundred thousand miles, and won the 
reputation of being the fastest and luckiest 

29 



SEASIDE SCENES AND THOUGHTS 

of her class, — it being a proverb among 
sailing-masters that ''his Satanic Majesty 
never sent a gale which didn't turn in favor 
of McKenzie." But the goddess Fortuna 
loves to play her pranks even on her favor- 
ites, and this time her fickleness proved fatal 
to McKenzie. He sailed from New York 
for Japan with a cargo of oil, the Sindia 
having been bought by the Standard Oil 
Company, and was returning with a varied 
and valuable freight. He had experienced 
unusually fine weather during the whole 
trip until seven days before the final catas- 
trophe, when, coming up through the Gulf 
Stream, he sailed into a furious gale. In 
the great darkness he steered northwesterly, 
hoping to make some port for temporary 
shelter, but his ship was gradually driven 
ashore at this point, which had been the 
grave of many a brave craft before. The 
Sindia had a steel frame, was 329 feet long, 
49 beam, 26 draft, and a tonnage of 6,000. 
July g. — This morning Ottilie gives me a 
two-hours' drive in her automobile. We 
drive from end to end of the island several 
times, almost always going through different 

30 



SEASIDE SCENES AND THOUGHTS 

streets and avenues each time. This has 
given me a good idea of the extent and to- 
pography of Ocean City. It appears full 
of promise and potentiality. The archi- 
tecture of it is pleasingly varied in style; 
only on one street did I see any marked uni- 
formity of construction in the houses. Many 
of them are small but quaint in appearance, 
having no upper story; some of them are 
pretty bungalows. Now and then there is 
to be seen a really expensive and elaborate 
house. Large and handsome apartment 
houses appear to be much in demand here. 
Of hotels here their name is legion, the largest 
and most pretentious one being the Nor- 
mandie. On the whole, however, Ocean 
City appears to be a city of real homes — 
more so than Atlantic City. It is laid out 
in right angles, — streets running east and 
west (numbering in all fifty-nine), and four 
avenues running north and south. All of 
them, streets and avenues, are wide and well 
founded; the sidewalks are excellent, in most 
cases being made of manufactured stone. 
Ottilie drives her car with a discriminative 
combination of audacity and caution. 

31 



SEASIDE SCENES AND THOUGHTS 

July 10. — I passed several hours this fore- 
noon in walking the streets and achieving 
a few errands. One of them was to buy a 
pound-box of delicious salt-water taffy to 
send to my little granddaughter. I went 
to the post-office to mail it by parcel post 
(expense ten cents, which might have been 
twenty-five cents by express), and to write 
a card to the sweetheart informing her of the 
forthcoming gift. In writing the postal 
card I became mentally confused as to date, 
whether the gth or the loth. Seeing a man 
near me at the desk, I said, ''Pardon me, sir, 
is to-day Wednesday or Thursday? An old 
man forgets." He stepped closer to me, and 
I observed that his eyes had a fanatic look 
in them. He pulled from his pocket, not a 
pistol, but a printed card, which he handed to 
me, and which informed me that he was a 
Salvation Army colonel. He began to 
''brother" me profusely, and after telling me 
many things besides the day of the week, he 
said, "Brother, remember me in your 
prayers." If he had overheard a small 
word which I used a little later at a sputtering 
pen I had borrowed of Uncle Sam, he might 

^2 



SEASIDE SCENES AND THOUGHTS 

have had some misgiving as to the efficacy 
of my prayers, although the word I had used 
may be found in the Bible. 

By the way, why do Christians still con- 
tinue to pray so much? They have been 
praying incessantly now for two thousand 
years, and it would seem by this time that 
their God ought to know quite well enough 
what they want of him. Why, then, can't 
they let him alone from now on, to do what 
he thinks best without any more teasing from 
them? 

July 12. — I have had a new experience 
to-day, and it is Goethe, I believe, who says 
that life is worth living for the sake of its 
new experiences. I have been crabbing for 
the first time in my life. I had supposed that 
going crabbing was like going fishing; but 
it is, and it isn't. In fishing, you practice 
nothing but deceit. You just tell the fish 
a lie: you say to him, ''Here is a nice fat 
worm which I want you to eat and be grate- 
ful to me evermore." If the fish is fool 
enough to trust you, he swallows your worm 
— and the hook hidden in it — and you pull 
him in and eat him. In catching a crab you 



SEASIDE SCENES AND THOUGHTS 

have to combine artful strategy with bold 
attack. You throw to him a piece of fish, 
with no hook inside it, and let it lie on the 
bottom for several minutes, as if you meant 
it for his sole good. But your gift has a 
string to it, and slowly, without jerks, you 
pull it up to the side of the boat, — trusting 
that the crab, having nibbled at the fish and 
found it toothsome, will follow it to the sur- 
face. If he does so, then you have to go for 
him with a long-handled scoop-net, and thus, 
if you are a successful scooper, land him in 
the boat. But the crab is a gamey crusta- 
cean, and if you try to take him out of the 
net with your hand he is likely to make you 
repent your rashness. The best way is to 
shake him out if you can; if you can't, then 
it is a fair fight between the deftness of your 
fingers and the incisiveness of his tentacles. 
Ottilie, who was my fellow-crabbist, handled 
the scoop-net with great dexterity, and suc- 
ceeded in scooping half a bushel of these 
delicious Crustacea. 

July I J. — As I was walking along the beach 
this morning I saw a man, evidently well into 
the sixties, studiously devoting himself to 

34 



SEASIDE SCENES AND THOUGHTS 

the entertainment of two children, — a boy 
and a girl. He was patiently and smilingly 
attentive to all their little pastimes, en- 
deavoring to further them in every possible 
way, carrying whatsoever of their play-im- 
plements they handed to him and producing 
the same on demand, running down with 
them to the edge of the receding water-line 
and then hastening them back again to keep 
them dry shod, and, in fact, doing all and 
everything as though it were as much fun for 
him as it clearly was for the youngsters, — 
thus acting as too few real fathers act with 
their children. I wanted very much to 
speak to this man, but one of the infirmities 
with which old age has afflicted me is a grow- 
ing deafness, which makes it difficult for me 
to talk with others without the use of arti- 
ficial aid; hence, the habit has grown upon 
me of shyness in inviting conversation with 
others, trying to be content with that which 
often passes between what Whittier calls 
"My Soul and I." Yet I was so much in- 
terested in this man's conduct that I said to 
myself, ''That old boy must belong to the 
same army that I do, and, by hookey! I'll 

35 



SEASIDE SCENES AND THOUGHTS 

ask him if he doesn't." Drawing my 
trumpet, I advanced upon him and said, 
"Excuse me, sir, but aren't you a grand- 
father, and aren't these your grandchil- 
dren?" With that proud smile on his face 
which I had expected to see, he said, "That's 
so. I am a grandfather, and these are my 
grandchildren." It was my turn to smile 
now, and I said, "I thought so; for being a 
grandfather myself, I know how fond old 
grandfathers act — just as you are acting." 
Then followed a little of that talk of which 
only grandfathers are capable, in which they 
swap grandchildren, so to speak; and then 
I said, "Aren't you a Scotchman? Why I 
ask this is that you look enough like Andrew 
Carnegie to be his brother." He squared his 
shoulders a bit before replying, "Yes, I am 
a Scotchman; but I am not Andrew Car- 
negie's brother, and what's more I don't want 
to be, for in that case I might come in for 
some of his millions, and I don't approve of 
the way he got 'em." I nodded my assent 
to this; but not caring to enter into an eco- 
nomic discussion with him (though we prob- 
ably should have agreed fairly well in that 

36 



SEASIDE SCENES AND THOUGHTS 

line), and having said all I wanted to say to 
him, I held out my hand, which he grasped 
cordially, and we said good-by to each other. 

July 14. — This morning Ottilie and I had 
a fine automobile drive down to Cape May 
Court House, the shire town of Cape May 
County, fifteen miles this side of Cape May. 
The round drive was about sixty miles, and it 
consumed about three hours. More than half 
an hour of this time was wasted by the balk- 
ing of our car, in which we experienced the 
kind helpfulness of a passing auto containing 
four men, including a Negro chauffeur. 'Tis 
the '4aw of the road" to render assistance 
to a sister auto when she needs it. No- 
body could find out why our car wouldn't 
go. Nothing appeared to be amiss in her 
machinery. She simply wouldn't crank; or, 
rather, she was too cranky to crank. But as 
mysteriously she stopped, so as mysteriously 
she started. All at once she cranked and 
away we sped, shouting out our thanks to 
the good Samaritans who had not ''passed 
by on the other side." 

July ij. — Carl and Ottilie go out to a card 
party this evening. Fred also goes out with 

37 



SEASIDE SCENES AND THOUGHTS 

two young folks-one of them a boy, of 
course, since two girls all alone are but sigh- 
ing company for each other,-and I am left 
solus with my evening cigar and the sound- 
ing sea, good enough companions for an old 
man While thus alone and pondermg I 
count in the course of about an hour, more 
than fifty automobiles flashing through the 
three streets of which my armchair com- 
mands a view. The ubiquitous automobile, 
how it has supplanted the equine vehicle! 
Will it in turn some time be supplanted by 

the airship? 

As I sit thus alone, Mnemosyne, that su- 
preme goddess of the lonely hour, leads nie 
through paths which are pleasant and paths 
which are painful. Her rule is so imperious 
and yet wayward that I sometimes wish that 
the division of our mind which we call mem- 
ory were, like our large sea-going vessels, 
composed of separate tight compartments, 
we being intrusted with the keys of each, so 
that we might-say, in our old age-put 
all our painful remembrances into one com- 
partment, lock the door on it, throw the key 
into the deep sea, and have only our pleas- 

38 



SEASIDE SCENES AND THOUGHTS 

ant remembrances left to dwell on. I wonder 
if Professor Muensterberg knows of any way 
of fixing up such an arrangement for us ! 

July i6. — I was early on the beach this 
morning for my usual mile walk before break- 
fast, — that is, down to the wrecked Sindia 
and back. How I do feed on these lonely 
walks in the fresh air of the new-born day! 
Seeing the empty shells cast up by the sea 
in plentiful profusion, I was reminded of Dr. 
Holmes's highest poetic flight, "The Cham- 
bered Nautilus," the last stanza of which 
I uttered aloud, — 

"Build thee more stately mansions, O my soul, 
As the swift seasons roll! 
Leave thy low- vaulted past! 
Let each new temple, nobler than the last, 
Shut thee from heaven with a dome more vast, 

Till thou at length art free, 
Leaving thine outgrown shell by life's unresting 
sea!" 

July ly. — Ottilie gives me another spin 
over the island in her car to-day. The 
whole island is as flat as a flapjack. Only 
a few native trees, and these stunted and 
scraggy, are to be seen on the island, but 

39 



SEASIDE SCENES AND THOUGHTS 

some imported ones have been set out here 
and there, which because of the sweeping 
local winds are likely to have a hard time in 
growing. All of the island which has not 
been built upon or laid out in lots is covered 
either with a coarse kind of grass and weeds 
or with low bushes, making in places a per- 
fect home jungle for mosquitoes; and yet 
the dwellers on the ocean side are seldom 
annoyed by these pesky pirates sent forth 
by Nature to harry and destroy mankind. 
The sand dunes at the south end are piled 
high along the inside line of the beach, cut- 
ting off the ocean view from the passerby in 
the street. The houses at this end of the 
island are mostly of the cheaper quaUty, 
though occasionally one sees even here a 
pretty and a costly residence. There are 
two thoroughly equipped United States life- 
saving stations at this point, because right 
here is the special point of danger to passing 

ships. 

July i5.— This morning's walk on the 
beach had to be done in a raincoat. A " sou'- 
easter" had been blowing heavily for several 
hours, and Neptune was bellowing his rage 

40 



SEASIDE SCENES AND THOUGHTS 

at such treatment from his brother iEolus. 
'Twas an incoming tide, and for many rods 
out from the beach a series of high watery- 
terraces were dashing thunderously toward 
me. My spectacles were covered with fly- 
ing spray, and I had often to remove and 
wipe them before I could safely walk on. 
Great drifts of fleecy foam were strewn along 
the beach, of a dirty-white color, and so 
thick in substance were they that I could 
lift them on the end of my cane. Of course 
I visited my unfortunate friend Sindia, being 
anxious to see how she bore such elemental 
buffeting. She shivered every time the 
powerful breakers struck her, but her huge 
steel frame, more than half imbedded in the 
sand, stubbornly held its ground, — the final 
day of her fate not yet having come, as it 
surely will come soon or late. 

July ig. — Most persons call this kind of 
weather hot, and swear at it; but the ther- 
mometer records only 86 in the shade. Hot 
weather means loo. 

Being all alone again this evening, the 
younger members of our little family absent, 
I lighted my cigar and went down to one of 

41 



SEASIDE SCENES AND THOUGHTS 

the pavilions on the boardwalk. There I 
saw a sweet baby, which captivated me at 
once. He was at that age when the ability 
to walk comes all at once, as it were, as a 
delightful surprise to a baby, and this one 
was in high glee over his new-found power of 
locomotion. His father took the baby out 
of the carriage and sat down with him near 
me. But his baby ship was for action, not 
for rest. He slipped down out of his father's 
arms and began to toddle along the floor, 
his tiny feet far apart and his short arms 
outstretched for balance. Suddenly he sat 
down on the floor with a bump, the shock 
imparting to his features an instant's shade 
of alarm; but being well padded in the lo- 
cality of the bump, and finding himself un- 
harmed by it, he struggled slowly to his feet 
and began to toddle again, — finally turning 
cautiously half-round and seeking shelter in 
his father's ready arms. He repeated these 
adventures in walking at least a dozen times, 
his lovely face always radiant with glee over 
the enterprise. Once, in a moment of per- 
plexity, he accepted a little assistance from 
me, having discovered my sympathetic in- 

42 



SEASIDE SCENES AND THOUGHTS 

terest in his efforts, and I was rewarded for 
it with an angelic smile. Finally his proud 
father put him in the carriage and trundled 
him away, — my heart following the innocent 
darling with a great sigh of longing. Verily, 
"a little child shall lead them." 

July 20. — This Sunday has been a sweet 
and quiet day, passed by me almost alone. 
I had my ante-breakfast walk, and have given 
the remainder of the day chiefly to reading 
and writing. 

— Although I long ago ceased to regard 
the Bible as authority in matters of belief, 
I yield to no one in my estimate of it as an 
English classic. Its literary quality is of 
the highest mark. So constant was my for- 
mer reading of it, when I went to it for fulness 
and finality of doctrine, that no inconsider- 
able portions of it are now enshrined in my 
memory, and I often recite them aloud when 
I am all alone, finding their literary flavor 
rich and savory on my tongue. Of course 
I have reference now to what we call "King 
James's Bible," and not to any of the "re- 
vised versions." These revisions interest 
me only academically, and not much even 

43 



SEASIDE SCENES AND THOUGHTS 

SO. Many of their emendations and correc- 
tions have a decidedly marring effect upon 
the purely literary expression of the dear old 
Bible, and are therefore offensive to my ear. 
Interest in scholarship is one thing; interest 
in good literature is another thing. One of 
the best scholars that Cambridge ever pro- 
duced, and she has produced not a few, once 
told me that when he wanted to read "The 
Iliad" or ''The Odyssey" for real pleasure 
he always read Pope's translation of those 
classics, albeit scholars (and he among them) 
regard that translation as rather a free one. 
So, since I love the Bible now not as the 
"word of God" but as the word and work of 
man, I do not like to have it trimmed by 
pedants and doctrinaires, who spoil its liter- 
ary style in the interest of what they call 
accuracy and authenticity. I wish they 
would let us read it as a classic, as we read 
Virgil and Homer and Shakespeare and Omar 
Khayyam. When we can once divest our 
minds of all inherited superstition regarding 
this grand old book, and accept it as real 
literature — nothing more and nothing less — 
we shall all agree that it is a precious relic 

44 



SEASIDE SCENES AND THOUGHTS 

of the past, and familiarity with its pages 
will be considered in our halls of learning as 
necessary a part of culture as a knowledge 
of other classics is now. 

July 21. — This morning's early walk on 
the beach was delightful. The sea was 
in a wholly different mood from that of last 
Friday. A land breeze of several hours had 
sufficed to give it calmness, and it sang in 
soft, low murmurs. I walked close to the 
water line, having occasionally to deviate 
a little as the longest wave came flashing up 
the strand. The waterscape was fairly clear, 
but no ghostly sail hovered anywhere on its 
margin. I was alone with the world of land 
and sea and sky. Sweet peace stole into my 
heart. 'Twas all much better than a prayer- 
meeting. Returning up the beach, I mounted 
the stairs to the boardwalk and stepped into 
a pavilion for a moment's rest. There I 
saw a gray-haired matron who had with her 
a baby in a carriage, — her grandchild I was 
sure. She was trying to amuse the infant 
by tossing up before it a little knitted ball 
on a string. But the baby had caught sight 
of the large blue glasses which I sometimes 

45 



SEASIDE SCENES AND THOUGHTS 

wear in bright weather, and was staring at 
them fixedly. I went up to the carriage 
and crooned a few soft syllables to its little 
occupant, saying aside to the woman, ''I 
love babies. I have had three of my own, 
but they are all grown up and busy men now; 
yet I have three little grandchildren to take 
their places. You are a grandmother, aren't 
you?" She replied, ''Yes, this is my grand- 
child. Its mother died the day it was born, 
and she never saw it." So my pleasant walk 
ended in sadness. 

July 22. — The stand-pat Republican sena- 
tors are prophesying that the prosperity of 
the country will be ruined by the new Dem- 
ocratic tariff law. If the curtailment of 
special privilege will cause the ruination of 
our prosperity, it will prove only that that 
prosperity has been built up on a wrong 
basis. We have never had more strikes and 
fierce industrial disorder than have taken 
place under a high tariff, especially the 
Payne-Aldrich tariff, highest of all tariffs. 
The manufacturers say, "Give us protec- 
tion for the sake of our American laborers, 
that they may have constant employment 

46 



SEASIDE SCENES AND THOUGHTS 

and high wages." But when protection is 
given them, what do they? They import 
cheap labor from Europe, so cheap that our 
native laborers, who are used to better living 
than the masses of Europe have ever had, 
cannot compete with them. Thus the mill 
and mine lords, not the American workmen, 
get the benefit of what they call protection. 
Protection? Sure, we all need it; but it is 
protection for fair play and equal opportu- 
nity. Having these, prosperity will then 
be achieved by the industrious and the in- 
genious. 

July 2j. — Watching the bathers is one of 
the primordial pastimes at a seaside resort 
of all those who for any reason do not them- 
selves indulge in salt-water bathing. There 
is here always fully as large a number of 
watchers as of bathers, and I fancy that the 
enjoyment of the occasion is about equally 
divided between the ins and the outs — which 
cannot be said of the political game. While 
bathing in the surf is done here at all hours 
of the day between sunup and sundown, 
according to the convenience of individual 
bathers, the most observed time for the sport, 

47 



SEASIDE SCENES AND THOUGHTS 

when it really is a sport and not a mere hy- 
gienic exercise, is from about ii o'clock to 
half -past 12. Then, for more than half a 
mile up and down the beach, hundreds of 
bathers furnish a kaleidoscopic scene which 
is fast and funny. 

The bathers naturally fall into four classes, 
and each class forms a distinctly different 
line or row from all the others. First, there 
is the infant class, composed of little children 
from three to seven or thereabout, who, 
wary of the great waves, yet loving the ex- 
citement of the sport, venture into the water 
only a little way, and just dabble and play 
in it, scampering out when they see a roller 
coming. I find that I observe these more 
than any other class. The second class 
consists of sedate and middle-aged women, 
mostly spinsters whose years entitle them to 
the degree of A. M. These wade in cau- 
tiously about up to the point where the 
modern corset terminates, and then wait for 
the waves to come and embrace them — 
whereat they shriek a little, but seem least- 
wise to enjoy the liberty thus taken with 
them, curtsying and bobbing a good deal. 

48 



SEASIDE SCENES AND THOUGHTS 

The third and by far the largest class is made 
up of braw young men and bonnie maidens, 
who dash resolutely and fearlessly into the 
water almost up to their armpits, laughing, 
shouting, splashing, gesticulating wildly, and 
sometimes diving into a huge breaker as it 
towers over them, — only the bravest of the 
maidens daring to do this, and these only 
when they have some trusty gallant by their 
side. Sometimes these boys and girls (for 
such they are in spirit despite their age, 
running from sixteen to twenty) form a 
long row, hand-joined, and stand thus breast- 
ing the onset of the powerful waves in one 
glad togetherness for a long, long time. The 
fourth class, and much the smallest, numbers 
only the strong and lusty swimmers who go 
into the water with the athletic spirit, and 
who launch out into the briny deep far be- 
yond all the others, beyond even the lifeboat 
which hovers on the scene, until only their 
heads are now and then visible as the ridged 
surface of the sea subsides. 

But the scene often changes. The bathers 
come out of the water and sit or lie on the 
beach in select groups according to social 

49 



SEASIDE SCENES AND THOUGHTS 

affinity, talking, laughing, chaffing. Some 
bury their feet, their legs, half their body, in 
the warm sand; some race up and down 
the strand; some play ball, girls as well as 
boys. Then these groups go back into the 
water, sporting again in the waves. This 
merry alternation between bathing and 
beaching goes on for an hour and a half, or 
maybe two hours, and then this swarm of wet 
merry-makers dissolves and walks home 
through the streets in parties of two or three 
or half a dozen, in some cases a mile or more. 
The prevailing costume of the feminine 
bathers is dark or plaid, consisting of a loose, 
low-necked blouse, trousers, stockings, and 
shoes of felt or tan. Now and then a girl, 
more daring or perhaps more self-unconscious 
than the majority of her sisters, appears 
barelegged and barefooted like all the men 
bathers, whereat nobody seems to be as- 
tonished or shocked. Some of the girls, 
those who are dowered with the fairest and 
richest locks, take off their oilskin caps and 
allow their hair to float free and wild as they 
saunter leisurely home. This captivating 
exhibition of their hirsute charms may well 

so 



SEASIDE SCENES AND THOUGHTS 

plead a hygienic no less than an esthetic 
motive, since the hair dries quicker in such 
exposure to the sun and wind than it other- 
wise would, and the scalp is really benefited. 

While all these bathing parties are of the 
most informal and even hilarious kind, I 
am bound to say, and glad to say, that real 
immodesty has never, so far as I have ob- 
served, shown its rude face among them in 
look, word, or action. One long romping 
playtime do these boys and girls have to- 
gether, without fear and without reproach. 
Liberty always justifies itself when happiness 
and innocence lay claim to it. I have been 
an onlooker on these revels with pleasure and 
with sympathy, my only regret being that I 
myself was not young enough to join in them. 

July 24, — It is my usual custom to greet 
the men and children whom I meet on the 
beach in my morning walks with a bow or a 
"Good-morning," but to pass all the women 
without recognition of any kind — this last 
in deference to conventional usage. This 
morning I met a woman whom I judged to 
be on the shady side of forty years. She was 
a person whom I did not know at all, but as 

SI 



SEASIDE SCENES AND THOUGHTS 

she gave me a direct and friendly glance I 
swept off my new white cap (which Carl 
says '4ooks quite nifty") and made to her a 
low bow, speechless and without slackening 
my pace. But as I saw that she halted and 
turned toward me, I stopped and stepped 
nearer to her, when she said, — 

"Why did you bow to me, sir?" still 
looking friendly. 

''Madam, it was a salute to the universe," 

I replied. 

''Oh, then it was not meant for me, since 
I am not the universe," she said. 

"Ah, but, madam, you are part of the 
universe, and part of the fairest part of it," 

I replied. 

"Oh, thank you," she said, and walked 

away smiling. 

And I walked away, also smiling. I have 
never seen her since, but in the name of the 
universe we have recognized each other's 
existence, and I daresay that no harm will 
come of it to either of us. 

July 2d.— The tide was so far on the ebb 
this morning, when I took my walk, that I 
was able to go close enough to the Sindia to 

52 



SEASIDE SCENES AND THOUGHTS 

touch her steel frame with a sympathetic 
hand. Far out on the watery marge I 
could descry eight different kinds of craft, 
each proudly sailing or steaming on its ap- 
pointed mission, regardless of their unfortu- 
nate sister ship now lying stranded on this 
fatal shore. Only a few years ago she was 
as proud a craft as any which plowed the sea, 
bearing an enviable record of successful ser- 
vice to every great port in the world; but 
now here she is, dead and forgotten, while 
they go careering on. How like human life 
is this! The living pause not for the dead. 
Necessity pricks them forward. The present 
hears the call of the future, and hastens away 
from the past. The most pathetic sentence 
in the drama of "Rip Van Winkle," and the 
only one, it is said, contributed to it by 
Joseph Jefferson himself, its world-famous 
actor, is this: ''How soon we are forgot when 
we are gone!" 

July 28. — A little before 11 o'clock this 
forenoon, Ottilie and I started in the Regal 
auto for a drive on the continent. We went 
through Petersburg (no Saint to it, but per- 
haps there is one in it), a small village con- 

53 



SEASIDE SCENES AND THOUGHTS 

sisting of a schoolhouse and three or four 
dwelling-houses, down to Tuckahoe Land- 
ing, and thence to May's Landing. Both of 
these small ports, whence agricultural prod- 
ucts are sent where they are most needed, 
are on an arm or rather finger of the sea, 
which has a curious way of insinuating itself 
up into this immense marshy flat region in 
many directions. Here we turned about and 
started for home and luncheon, and had 
gotten within six miles of both when we 
stopped to pick some wild-flowers, which 
grow here in great profusion. The Regal 
had been behaving beautifully so far, as in- 
deed it generally does under OttiHe's skilful 
driving; but when we were ready to resume 
our journey, the Regal was of an opposite 
mind, refusing to breathe even a sigh of 
consent. Ottihe exhausted her chaufleurish 
ingenuity on it all to no effect. The chauf- 
feur of a passing car, being appealed to, did 
all he knew how to help us, but without the 
least success; our automobfle still (very still) 
remained an auto-im-mobile. Then we sig- 
naled another passing car, and got its chauf- 
feur to stop at a house half a mile ahead of 

54 



SEASIDE SCENES AND THOUGHTS 

US and telephone to the garage in Ocean 
City, which houses our car, to come to our 
relief. This done, we resigned (or, rather, 
consigned) ourselves to waiting. I hadn't 
anything to smoke, and neither of us had 
anything to eat, and the flies and mosquitoes 
were eating us, and it was as hot as that place 
we have all heard of. Ottilie, knowing of my 
story-telling function as a grandfather, asked 
me to tell her a story now to while away the 
time; so I took off my coat, and began a 
long one. About the time my story was fin- 
ished, the relief car whirled into view. 
Within three minutes the experienced ma- 
chinist had the Regal panting with life. 
Nothing much was the matter with her. A 
little bolt, or screw, or something (the devil 
knows what) had slipped out of place, and 
she couldn't breathe until that slip had been 
un-slipped. We had lost two hours and our 
patience. Mysterious is the automobile! 

July 2g. — Pudd'nhead Wilson said, '* Con- 
sider well the proportion of things. It is 
better to be a young June-bug than an old 
bird of paradise." There spoke a man 
(Mark Twain) who had felt and knew the 

55 



SEASIDE SCENES AND THOUGHTS 

difference between the thrilling joy of youth 
and the withering touch of old age; and not 
being a poet, but just a man of extra common 
sense, he didn't tell any pretty Hes about it- 
he simply talked straight. When Robert 
Browning warbled — 

" Grow old along with me, 
The best is yet tobe"— 

he either knew that he lied for rhyme's sake, 
or he must have been one of those early-ripe 
boys who never have known what it is to 
be young. One might as truly say that frost 
is better than sunshine, night better than 
day, winter better than spring, as that old 
age is better than youth. Frost chills and 
stiffens, night arrests activity, winter brings 
torpor and decay— and all these effects are 
produced by old age. Were I a poet I would 
tune my harp to celebrate life, love, laughter, 
health, and youth— not age, with its conse- 
quent decrepitude and decay. 

July 30.— When Carl left us this morning 
it was with the expectation all around that he 
would return to us to-night; but about 11 
o'clock he sent a telegram to Ottilie, saying 

56 



SEASIDE SCENES AND THOUGHTS 

that unexpectedly he had been called to New 
York and didn't know when he should return. 
Great is business for ordering men about and 
disposing of their time and energy! When 
the modern business man kisses his wife 
good-by in the morning and runs to catch 
his train, he doesn't ''almost always some- 
times" know whether it will be eight or 
eighty hours before he can kiss her again. 
Business nowadays is well-nigh as peremp- 
tory, absolute, and even militant as war. 

— There are quahaugs (cohogs is the popu- 
lar pronunciation) enough on the beach to 
make a chowder for a score of good-sized 
families every noon in Ocean City. The 
holes dug to get these delectable mollusks 
scar the beach from end to end, but happily 
the next tide repairs these ravages. So too 
the successive waves of time obliterate many 
scars made on the human heart. To for- 
get (if he can) is one of man's most saving 
qualities. 

July ji. — In spite of my desire and effort 
to precede every one else on the beach in the 
morning, there is one old fellow who persists 
in getting there a few minutes before me. 

57 



SEASIDE SCENES AND THOUGHTS 

But though he is a younger man than I am 
by several years, he doesn't rise thus early 
to walk on the beach, as I do; he goes 
straight into the pavilion, takes his favorite 
seat in the northeast corner, and proceeds to 
fill and smoke a terrifically potent pipe. I 
know he does this on an empty stomach, be- 
cause he goes home regularly to breakfast 
after an hour or so of quiet fumigation. I 
always give him my morning salutation, but 
rather under protest. I fancy he may be 
an old sailor now stranded, to whom a pipe 
would be as *'fillin" as hardtack and salt 
horse. 



III. 

August J. — This morning, when I was walk- 
ing on the beach, I overtook a man who was 
trudging slowly along in his shirtsleeves and 
barefooted, carrying his shoes in his hand 
with the stockings tucked into them. I said 
"Good-morning" to him as I passed him by; 
but he quickened his pace, saying, "You are 
out early for an old man," his eyes smiling. 

58 



SEASIDE SCENES AND THOUGHTS 

"So are you for a young man," I replied, also 
smiling; he was about sixty, I judged. 
"Yes," he said; "but I've been out all night, 
watching the coast and the briny. 'Twas 
a heavy storm we had yesterday," glancing 
at the pounding breakers. "Do you belong 
to the life-saving service?" I asked. "Yes; 
but I'm goin' to quit it soon; I'm consid'able 
over fifty, an' I can't stan' it much longer," 
was his answer. "Well, I hope you will get 
a pension," I said. "I orter, but I dunno as 
I shall. They pension soldiers; but what do 
they do more'n I? They resk their lives, and 
I resk mine. They kill folks, and I save folks, 
— that's the difference," he said, rather gloom- 
ily. I agreed with him entirely, and added, 
"I know Mr. Kimball, your chief, and he 
thinks you fellows ought to be pensioned, and 
is trying to persuade Congress to do it." We 
had stopped in our walk during this conver- 
sation, and I now offered him my hand, with 
a little silver graciousness inside of it, and we 
parted. 

August 4, — Ottilie and I had a drive in the 
Regal of about eighty miles (round trip) on 
the continent this morning. We went to 

59 



SEASIDE SCENES AND THOUGHTS 

Wildwood, which is about eight miles north 
of Cape May. Wildwood is an attractive 
place ; it has a fine beach, an extensive board- 
walk, wide streets, and some first-class villas. 
Like Ocean City and Sea Isle City, Wildwood 
is on an island, and is reached from the main- 
land (as Ocean City is) by a long causeway 
stretching through an immense marsh and 
over a drawbridge. We took lunch in Wild- 
wood, and then drove through the principal 
streets. 

Always observing closely the region 
through which I pass, I have every time 
noted the unusual number of burying-grounds 
to be seen hereabout; and every one of them 
appears to be well filled. As the interior of 
this southern part of New Jersey is so mo- 
notonous and uninteresting, I don't wonder 
that its inhabitants have acquired a some- 
what regular habit of dying; but it is to be 
regretted that they have not also fallen in 
with the increasing vogue of disposing of the 
lifeless body by cremation. Their scenery 
in itself is sufficiently uninviting without 
the added disfigurement of acres of ghastly 
gravestones. 

60 



SEASIDE SCENES AND THOUGHTS 

— ^The boy or man who whistles, sings, and 
laughs when he works, or when he is all alone 
with himself, is incapable of treason, strat- 
agem, or spoils. He is neither an unmiti- 
gated pessimist nor an essential sinner. He 
may be wicked sometimes as judged by con- 
ventional standards, but sin is a stranger to 
his soul. We don't have enough of merry 
laughter and fun in this world, where, as 
Byron says, *' pleasure is sin, and sin is some- 
times pleasure." To be dowered at birth 
with a keen sense of humor is better than to 
"get religion" in a prayer-meeting, for it saves 
its possessor from much shame and sorrow. 
To "laugh and grow fat" is not easier than 
to laugh and grow kind. I bless the man 
with my hearty benediction who can deftly 
tell a funny story or crack a good joke; and 
I have no bowels for that man who affects to 
despise a pun. If a pun is the lowest of all 
humor, it is because, as dear Charles Lamb 
says, it is the basis — not the basest — of all 
humor. I would rather hear a good pun 
than a poor prayer. Give us beauty and 
give us joy, and we shall surely then have 
peace and good-will among men. 

6i 



SEASIDE SCENES AND THOUGHTS 

August 5. — It is amusing to watch the 
white-belKed little sea-snipes, as they flock 
in scores on the beach, picking up their dainty 
food which the wild waves bring to them. 
Perhaps shore-snipe would be a correcter 
term for them, but sea-snipe is the name by 
which they are known here. Certainly these 
feathered midgets here in evidence do not 
deserve the opprobrium implied in their 
name as used by Shakespeare in '^ Othello," 
where he makes lago say of Roderigo — 

"Thus do I ever make my fool my purse; 
For I mine own gain'd knowledge should profane, 
If I would time expend with such a snipe 
But for my sport and profit" — 

for they are no fools, but on the contrary are 
very cunning and adroit. I watch amusedly 
their lively antics every morning as I walk. 
Their movements are so agile that from a 
distance (and 'tis only from a distance that 
I can get to observe them, they are so shy) 
they seem to skate, instead of run, up and 
down the beach. They are plucky little 
bipeds, charging right into the face of an in- 
coming breaker, and turning tail only when 

62 



SEASIDE SCENES AND THOUGHTS 

it is ready to deluge them. They don't ap- 
pear to mind getting their feet and feathery 
pantalets wet, but they do object to drag- 
gled tail-feathers and a soused back; and yet 
directly the wave has broken, and while it 
is still receding, they flash about and skate 
down into it after their prey before it shall 
be washed back into the briny deep. These 
snipe are not strictly aquatic birds, though 
they frequent the ocean and appear to de- 
pend on it to feed them. What they eat is 
a tiny clam, which is swept up on the strand 
by the rolling waves. 

August 6. — I am glad that it has been my 
experience to live through and far away from 
in time the fierce and sanguinary war between 
the States of this republic, and to see the 
North and the South joined in bonds of mut- 
ual interest stronger than they ever were 
before. The recent celebration at Gettys- 
burg gave a most impressive benediction to 
the final union in friendship of men who had 
been mortal enemies of one another on that 
bloody field of strife fifty years ago. Yet 
though this consummation of a peaceful set- 
tlement of former enmities is so gratifying 

63 



SEASIDE SCENES AND THOUGHTS 

to me, I cannot be so blind to certain signs 
of the present as to dismiss all fear of future 
troubles for our country. These troubles 
will surely be of a somewhat different nature 
from those of the past, but they may not be 
less afflictive to our national happiness and 
welfare; indeed, they may be more so. I 
believe that we shall never have another war 
between different sections of our Union — we 
are too closely knit together by common inter- 
ests to admit of that — but I am not so sure 
that we may not experience a mighty conflict 
between the different classes now huddled 
together in this country. The present grow- 
ing alienation between capital and labor, be- 
tween colossal wealth and desperate poverty, 
between economic radicalism and plutocratic 
conservatism, between imperial combination 
and free competition, seems as threatening 
as any portent which ever loomed on our 
nation's horizon. All this involves class in- 
terests, not sectional, but who can say that 
they are less dangerous to the peace of the 
country? 

August 7. — We have, every now and then, 
a day down here which is full of dampness, and 

64 



SEASIDE SCENES AND THOUGHTS 

it sets the rheumatism to aching in the frame 
of bones which I was born with. I suppose 
this is because I am the beloved of the Lord, 
for doesn't the Bible say that *'whom the 
Lord loveth he chasteneth"? and if there be 
any chastener more thorough in its business 
methods than rheumatism it has failed to 
come my way. On one of these damp, foggy 
days it occurred to me to ask the Lord to 
love me less and treat me better. I haven't 
yet heard from him in reply to my modest 
petition. 

August 8. — We all had an early breakfast 
with Carl this morning, because Ottilie 
and Fred were bound for Atlantic City in 
the automobile and wished to get away in 
the freshness of the morning. Ottilie's er- 
rand thither is to secure her license as a 
chauffeur, for which she has hitherto had 
only a certificate of application. As Carl 
jokingly said, ''She must either go to At- 
lantic City or go to jail." It seems that the 
city officials here, in view of the extraordi- 
nary increase in the number of automobiles 
operating on the island, have awakened to 
the necessity of rigidly enforcing the law that 

6s 



SEASIDE SCENES AND THOUGHTS 

all drivers of cars must be licensed chauffeurs, 
and the speed-limit must be strictly observed 
on all the streets. This is but right, and 
they should have acted earlier in this matter. 
There has been too much irresponsible and 
careless driving here of these rapid and pon- 
derous vehicles, to the imminent peril of life 
and limb. What is the sense of prohibiting 
the sale of intoxicating liquors, if auto- 
mobilists are allowed to make these streets 
dangerous to walk in? An ordinary drimken 
man is far less inimical to citizen safety than 
a wild and reckless chauffeur. — Later. The 
dear little woman has returned triumphant, 
with her license in her pocket (no! women 
have no pockets; she brought it in her bag). 
She reports that she was subjected to a rigid 
examination in the driving of her car, — the 
licenser riding with her and requiring her to 
exhibit her skill as chauffeur in every con- 
ceivable particular; but she got the ''Well 
done" verdict at last. 

August g. — Yesterday afternoon I saw a 
ruddy-faced, amiable-looking boy shooting 
sea-snipe, and this morning I didn't see a 
single one of these interesting birds on the 

66 



SEASIDE SCENES AND THOUGHTS 

beach. I fear that they have been frightened 
away by this thoughtless, sporting youth. 
How can any father put a gun into the hands 
of his son without warning him never to use 
it in destroying bird life for the mere fun of 
^'hitting the mark"? Sportsmanship minus 
the highest sense of individual responsibility 
is disreputable in boy or man. What we 
actually need in the realm of Nature we have 
a right to take, provided it has not already 
been fairly appropriated by another; but 
rapine and waste are criminal, and should be 
strongly condemned by public opinion. Be- 
cause Nature herself is predatory is no rea- 
son why we should follow her bad example — 
that is, if we would be rational men and not 
beasts of prey. 

August 10. — In the course of my long life 
I have known many persons who reminded 
me of nothing so much as the third letter 
in our Enghsh alphabet. The letter C has 
really no mission or message of its own, but 
always represents and speaks for either K 
or S. The men and women who don't do 
their own original and independent thinking, 
but who accept without doubt or question 

67 



SEASIDE SCENES AND THOUGHTS 

the thoughts and opinions and even prej- 
udices of others,— their parents, their poHti- 
cal, rehgious, or social clan,— I call C-folks, 
because, like the letter C, they have no 
kindling, challenging mission or message of 
their own creation or discovery, but are 
mere representatives and spokesmen for 
some dominant influence under which they 
were born or by which they have been cap- 
tured. In my interview with the clerical 
editor of one of the local journals here, he 
asked me what church I belonged to; and 
when I told him I didn't belong to any church, 
sect, or party, but that they all belonged to 
me,— that is, I was interested in them all as 
phases of human behefs and activities, and 
found something to admire in each,— he 
appeared quite flabbergasted at my extrane- 
ity. He simply couldn't understand why I 
didn't "belong" to somebody or something 
other than myself. He was a C-man. 

August II.— On returning up the beach 
this morning from my customary early walk 
I met a young couple arm in arm,— the in- 
evitable ''man and maid." The wind was 
blowing fresh and strong, the waves were 



68 



SEASIDE SCENES AND THOUGHTS 

noisy and sparkling. I felt unusually fresh 
and strong myself, and the maiden's eyes 
were dancing with the light of joy and warm 
life. Both she and her companion shot at me 
a kindhng look, and irresistibly I paused, with 
uplifted hand, saying, ''As you walk lightly 
among these tiny tenements of the dead," 
pointing to the shells under our feet, ''let 
me repeat to you the closing lines of Holmes's 
'Chambered Nautilus.'" As I finished the 
recitation, the maid pressed closer to the side 
of the man, and, looking straight into my 
eyes, said, "I think you are just splendid!" 
Abashed at this unexpected and misdirected 
exclamation, I replied, "Oh, no! Old age 
has lost its splendor; its fading day shines 
only with reflected light. But youth is 
splendid, and full of promise; and may the 
sentiment of these lines I have just recited, 
help to fulfil the splendid promise of your 
fair youth." I left them standing there, and 
I didn't look back! 

August 12. — We have recently had an 
addition to our little family. The new- 
comer is a business man; yet he comes not 
to us on any business venture, but rather to 

69 



SEASIDE SCENES AND THOUGHTS 

escape from all its cares and burdens for a 
while. He comes to give his heart to loving 
fellowship, his mind to pleasing and edifying 
thoughts, and his vital forces to the stimu- 
lating tonic of sea-breezes and salt-water 
bathing. He is one of those efhcient and 
successsful business men who have a window 
in the top of their heads (may their number 
increase!), so that while their feet stand 
firmly on the earth they can occasionally 
indulge in an upward look,— a look which 
gives them views transcending mere com- 
mercial interests. His years, though they 
haven't yet hit the sixty mark, will entitle 
him, while he remains with us, to the rank of 
sub-patriarch in our family group, I of course 
being the premier in that function. Like 
me, however, he is juvenile in his sympathies; 
and he and Fred have formed a hydropathic 
partnership, and every day together they 
join the merry group of bathers. At other 
times Ottilie takes him in charge, and they 
whirl away together on long automobile 
rides on the continent,— thus enabling me 
to cultivate, among my other noble qualities, 
the virtue of self-sacrifice, since Ottilie's 

70 



SEASIDE SCENES AND THOUGHTS 

car was designed to promote only dual rela- 
tions. When the sub-patriarch isn't other- 
wise more pleasurably employed, he sits 
with me on the piazza, and we have a good 
smoke-think together. 

August I J. — The wind was southeast this 
morning when I took my early walk, and 
the boisterous sea spat its salt spume into 
my face; but, unlike Vichnu's dwarf friend 
Agastya, who was similarly insulted, I could 
not retaliate by drinking the ocean dry, as he 
did. I had to let it spit, and pocket the 
affront. Many long rows of seaweed were 
piled up along the beach, reminding me of 
the windrows I used to rake up in the mow- 
ing lot when I was a boy. This seaweed, 
as I told a laddie I met, was the hay which 
Neptune fed to his horses down in the stables 
of the sea. He looked wonderingly at me, so 
I had to tell him who Neptune was, and how 
he rode in and through the sea, in his chariot 
drawn by monster sea-horses. He appeared 
to be interested, but evidently this was a 
part of his theological education which had 
been neglected. But why? Surely, these 
old Greek myths and fables are as interesting 

71 



SEASIDE SCENES AND THOUGHTS 
as those found in the Bible, and they are 
quite as full of instruction. 

August 14.— In my early walk this morn- 
ing I had a pleasant interview, near the 
wreck, with an unusually inteUigent young 
man. He was bareheaded and coatless, 
and as he approached me slowly and with 
a deferential air I gave him my "Good- 
morning," thinking no more would come 
of it; but as he continued to draw nearer, 
as if inviting an interview, I said, pointing 
to the last advancing wave which had com- 
pelled me to retreat several paces, "It is 
useless to adopt the lofty Canutian tone of 
authority in the presence of the sea, and say, 
^Thus far, and no farther.' We must do the 
retreating, or get our feet wet." Then his 
face lighted up in a way which assured me of 
his intellectual quahty, and we had some 
little conversation, in which I learned that he 
is, or was until recently, a college professor, 
but owing to a nervous collapse had been 
ordered by his physician out of his professor's 
chair into the open. He is now camping out 
here in a tent, pitched among many others 
on a wide strip of sand above the boardwalk, 



72 



SEASIDE SCENES AND THOUGHTS 

is taking sea-baths, and doing a lot of gentle- 
manly roughing. He was so interesting in 
tone and manner, and withal so mentally 
receptive, that I effused on him more than I 
am wont to do to a brand-new acquaintance. 
He asked me to call on him in his tent, but 
I shall not do so; for though a deaf man is 
always glad to be visited by agreeable persons 
who, knowing his infirmity, yet seek him in 
spite of it, he is naturally and very properly 
shy of paying visits. This young professor 
and I have let our minds accost each other, 
and now we go our way apart with a mutual 
pleasant and kind thought. Isn't that in 
itself a decided gain for both of us? 

August ij. — The boys and girls down 
here are fertile in inventing ways of hav- 
ing "si good time" together. One of these 
ways is to build a big bonfire on the beach 
in the evening, at which they toast the 
demulcent marshmallow, and around which 
they circle, dance, and caper like so many 
Macbethan witches. As an onlooker I am 
exceedingly sympathetic, not desiring to 
abridge one bit of their fun. Black care is 
waiting for them out there in the coming 

73 



SEASIDE SCENES AND THOUGHTS 
years, and I am for applauding their efforts 
to keep him off as long as possible. 

August id.— The sub-patriarch and I went 
to a grand combination show this afternoon, 
our interest in it having been challenged by 
an elaborate parade which it made through 
our streets this morning. It is the union 
of a Wild- West show, a Hippodrome, and an 
Oriental exhibit. As Ottihe and Fred had 
previous engagements, we two elderly boys 
formed a mere male procession by ourselves 
to the mammoth tent pitched on the baseball 
field. The show was worth seeing by any 
one interested in knowing how men and 
women of our own race lived in former half- 
civilized pioneer conditions, and how people 
of the Far East look and act to-day, and what 
marvelous things animals can be trained 
to do. It was a Life-show, and what is 
so interesting as life? The number of horses 
in the immense arena was extraordinarily 
large, and they were of the best of their kind. 
I love a good horse, and am not willing to 
say good-by to him because the automobile 
is so fascinating and serviceable. The horse- 
manship of the riders was superb, both of 



74 



SEASIDE SCENES AND THOUGHTS 

the men and of the women, and was much 
aided by the intelligent and well-trained 
animals they rode. As for the elephant, the 
wonder never ceases at what he can be taught 
to do. I believe that man's superiority to 
what we call ''dumb animals" has been 
lauded too indiscriminately. It is lucky 
for us that they are dumb, for if they could 
talk, what mighty nasty things they could 
truthfully say of us! Montaigne was right 
in asserting that we are indebted to these 
humbler of our relatives for many of the 
ideas out of which we have elaborated some 
of our great achievements. 

August 17. — When Sunday comes, though 
I don't "go to meeting," I "dress up" and 
put on my "best clothes." If this is the re- 
sult of vanity (and I don't think it is), the 
outcome is not bad. A complete sartorial 
transformation once in seven days at least 
has a good effect on a man's character; at 
any rate it has such an effect on his daily 
habits. It conduces to keeping him clean, 
outwardly if not inwardly; and if "cleanli- 
ness is next to godliness," then "dressing up" 
on Sunday really exalts a man. 

75 



SEASIDE SCENES AND THOUGHTS 

I remember that when I was a boy, living 
in the country, some of the old farmers, who 
hadn't had a bath during the whole week, 
or a shave, would go in swimming Saturday 
night or "have a tub" in the kitchen (for 
there wasn't then a bathroom in that whole 
town of over three thousand inhabitants), 
and then a good shave (for almost nobody 
wore beards then), because they were to put 
on a clean shirt and their "best clothes" 
Sunday morning, and wanted to have con- 
ditions "corroborate," as one of them said. 
They all felt more respectable for this clean- 
ing up and dressing up innovation. One of 
these farmers (a jolly old fellow, an excellent 
neighbor, and a regular church-goer), being 
an inveterate tobacco-chewer, used to carry 
to church with him his cuspidor, — "spitbox" 
he called it, and it was a small, shallow, 
wooden box filled with sawdust. In de- 
fense of it he would say, "I kind er can't 
seem to enjie the sermon so well 'nless I can 
spit once in a while." As my father's pew was 
next to his, it was one of my Sunday diver- 
sions during the long sermon to watch this old 
man and see how often he hit the mark. 

76 



SEASIDE SCENES AND THOUGHTS 

Now, although my tub is a daily one, I 
welcome my Sunday suit, and to save it from 
a possible wetting I take my Sunday morn- 
ing stroll on the boardwalk instead of on the 
beach. Here, too, of a Sunday, the ''dressed 
up" babies and little children roll in their 
carriages and patter along the clean floor. 
This morning I saw a young father pushing 
his bright, sweet baby in its chariot, and as 
he passed where I was sitting I said, "You 
couldn't possibly be better employed, sir; 
for these dear babies are the delicatessen of 
our human species down here. The world 
belongs to them, not to old fellows like me. 
To treat them well is our highest service." 
He smiled, and replied, "I reckon there is 
room enough in the world for them and you 
too." 

August i8. — Ah! 'twas a precious time I 
had on the beach this morning. I found it 
in an unusually clean condition, — no long 
rows of seaweed or seashells, no rubbish of 
any kind, and the sand beaten down smooth 
and hard. I felt in extraordinary fine fettle 
myself. Somehow I seemed unconscious of 
having either legs or feet; I swung up my 

77 



SEASIDE SCENES AND THOUGHTS 

cane into the hollow of my hand, took off 
my cap, and just apparently floated along, 
taking with me my more than seventy-nine 
and a half years as if they were only seven- 
teen and a half. First, I went straight down 
to my sad-fated friend the Sindia, not meet- 
ing a soul on the way, but having the sparkle 
of the crested waves in my eyes and the 
bracing tonic of the sea air in my lungs all 
the way. Opposite the wreck I encountered 
a young man, who came up and spoke to 
me in a low voice. ''Avast there!'' I said 
(as if I were a regular old salt), "wait till I 
get out my ears, which I carry in my inside 
coat-pocket." When I had produced my 
ear-gun I aimed it at him and said, "Now, 
please." He wanted to know how to hunt 
for quahaugs. I amiably instructed him 
in that art, and left him to engage in it. 

On the upward stretch of my return on 
the beach I found myself walking instead 
of floating, this perhaps owing to the fact 
that I had somewhat by this time diminished 
the reservoir of energy which a night's rest 
had given me. About halfway up the strand 
I discovered under the boardwalk a battered 

78 



SEASIDE SCENES AND THOUGHTS 

box left over from a last night's bonfire, and 
drawing it out on the beach I sat down on it 
the more deliberately to observe the grand 
spectacle before me. The sun had bored a 
red hole through the heavy morning mist, 
through which he now pushed his rubicund 
face and dropped a golden shaft on "the 
wrinkled sea." One end of that shaft lay 
at my feet, while the other stabbed the va- 
porous curtain hanging between the sky and 
the shimmering waters. The tide was on 
the flow, and the waves were advancing 
nearer and nearer, until one of them touched 
the toe of my boot. Then I knew it was 
time for me to quit, before the next am- 
bitious roller should convert my improvised 
seat into an island. Dragging the box back 
under the boardwalk I strolled on up to the 
first pavilion, which afforded me a higher 
and dryer coign of vantage for oversight of 
Old Ocean's revelry. The ancient ante- 
breakfast smoker had had his pipe and gone 
home to his bacon and eggs. Only one 
woman shared with me the solitude of the 
pavilion, and she was as speechless an ob- 
server of the scene as I. When I went home 

79 



SEASIDE SCENES AND THOUGHTS 

to my bacon and eggs, I carried a lighter 
heart and a clearer brain. 

August 20. — This morning, soon after 
breakfast, Ottilie and I whirled away to the 
continent in the Regal. Her errand was to 
purvey for the house larder, and mine to be 
as agreeable company for her as possible. 
The six thousand people, more or less, in 
Ocean City would starve if they had not the 
adjacent continent to supply them with food. 
Not an edible is raised on this island; every 
square foot of it is held for building purposes, 
and is coined into financial assets for those 
who own the land. Every householder here 
looks to the long causeway over the marsh 
to bring daily supplies for his table. The 
" skeeter "-bitten farmer on the Jersey sand- 
plains bends his back and mops his brow to 
raise vegetables, eggs, and poultry for the 
near-by city and town folk. So Ottilie and I 
brought home heaps of things to eat which 
we bought of farmers' wives and daughters, 
the men-folk being in the fields. Of course 
there are many provision stores in Ocean City, 
but aside from meats and fish they get 
their supplies mainly from the same source 

80 



SEASIDE SCENES AND THOUGHTS 

where we got ours to-day. In going out, 
Ottilie called my attention to a place where 
only a small dam separates a fresh-water 
pond from a salt-water inlet. I dropped the 
remark that this struck me as a dam queer 
arrangement. As she loves me, she forgives 
me! 

— As I sat alone on the piazza last evening 
enjoying my vesper cigar, two birds came 
flying directly toward me, and one of them, 
the smaller, dropped down on the arm of 
my chair, while the other, evidently the 
mother of this little one, flew through our 
piazza to that of the neighboring house, 
where it alighted to wait further develop- 
ments. The baby bird seemed quite satis- 
fied with his resting-place, and comically 
cocked his eye at me, and I seemed to hear 
him say, "Well, Mr. Man, what do you think 
of me?" I sat as motionless as he did, only 
cautiously removing the cigar from my 
mouth lest the smoke from it should frighten 
him. After several minutes of perfect silence 
had passed between us, I began to talk to 
him in a low, caressing voice. I told him he 
was a fine little birdie, and I was so glad he 

8i 



SEASIDE SCENES AND THOUGHTS 

had called to see me; that I hoped he would 
grow up to be a big, strong bird and able to 
fly as fast and as far as his mother could; 
that he must always mind his mother and 
keep out of bad company, for there were 
bad birds as well as bad boys and men; that 
when he grew up and got married, as I hoped 
he would, he must treat his wife and all lady 
birds with great kindness and consideration, 
demanding that they should have equal voice 
and vote with him in all bird matters; and 
finally that his mother was getting very 
anxious about him, and now that he had got 
well rested he might better go and join her 
on the flight home to his nest, but to come 
again and see me whenever he found me 
alone. He sat very still while I was talking 
to him, replying only with that comical cock- 
ing of his eye, and then, finding that I had 
no more to say to him, he flew to his mother, 
and they both disappeared in the deepening 
darkness. 

August 21. — "The breaking waves dashed 
high" this morning as I walked on the beach. 
The strong east wind which has been blow- 
ing for two days had whipped them into an 

82 



SEASIDE SCENES AND THOUGHTS 

uproar, and they came bellowing in with fury 
on their faces. As they broke on the shore, 
the pursuing wind cuffed off their white 
heads and sent them glistening through the 
air. Far out over the watery plain I could 
see Old Ocean lifting his broad shoulders and 
plunging forward as if he meant to drown 
the land. Indeed, not many years ago he 
held a considerable portion of this island sub- 
ject to his sway. The site of the cottage in 
which I am sojourning here was then covered 
by several feet of water. But he has gradu- 
ally contracted his domain, and been gen- 
erous to the city in extending its littoral 
possessions. At any time, however, he may 
repent of that generosity and recoup a part 
or the whole of his gift. The Atlantic coast 
has undergone great changes in the past, and 
it may undergo even greater in the future. 
The feud between land and sea is of long 
standing and incessant. 

August 22. — On my way down the beach 
this morning I came on two half -naked, 
brown-skinned lads who, with tremendous 
industry, were building a sand-fort. I 
stopped to inspect their work for a minute, 



SEASIDE SCENES AND THOUGHTS 

and then said^ ''That's right! build it big 
and strong, for Dick Hobson says the Japs 
are coming over here with a monstrous fleet 
to make war on us with their battleships, and 
if your fort is big enough and strong enough 
it will save Ocean City from being destroyed 
by them." One of the brown chaps sprang 
to his feet, and with blazing eyes shouted, 
''When are they coming?" Looking wild- 
eyed myself, I replied, "Oh, they may be 
here any day — ^perhaps to-day; go to it!" 
He flung himself down on his knees again, 
and the two began to dig fiercely with their 
hands and heap up their frail ramparts, all 
oblivious that the incoming tide would soon 
level them. As I left the lads and walked 
on, I asked myself if this scare of invasion 
which I had just roused wasn't as real and 
serious as any we are likely to have in this 
country? 

August 2 J. — Another foraging expedition 
to the continent to-day with Ottilie in the 
Regal. What a monotonous life these farm- 
ers must have in this uninteresting flat section 
of New Jersey! It is so uninteresting as to 
be really comical. It keeps me wondering 

84 



SEASIDE SCENES AND THOUGHTS 

if the people here ever see it in that light, if 
they ever joke or laugh any at their own 
situation, if they ever do anything but work, 
and wait for their turn to be carried to some 
one of these well-filled graveyards yawning 
at them hereabout. Come to think of it, 
they must have at least two excitements 
indigenous to their soil; one is when they 
have a mosquito bite, and the other when 
they shake with ague. Both of these, I 
fancy, should be able to give them a lively 
moment now and then. I observe also that 
they are well supplied with churches, in 
which they are probably told of the joys await- 
ing them in heaven; and this, I hope, helps 
to reconcile them to work and wait here. 

These wide marshes grow some beautiful 
wild-flowers, and to-day I noticed that the 
goldenrod is beginning to lighten up some of 
the roadsides. Do the farmers, I wonder, 
ever pause in their toil to look at these 
beauty challengers? Some of their wives 
do I am sure, because here and there I see 
a flower-bed in their front yards, and a 
flowering vine traiHng over a door or window. 
The signs of the love of the Beautiful crop 

85 



SEASIDE SCENES AND THOUGHTS 

out in some most unexpected places — of tener, 
perhaps, than signs of the love of the True 
and the Good. But the members of this 
adorable Trinity are apt to keep within hail- 
ing distance of one another. 

August 24. — The sub-patriarch left us this 
morning. He has been with us just two 
weeks — a blessed fortnight it was to all con- 
cerned. I was as sorry to have him go as I 
was glad to have him come. We have had 
some dear communion together on high 
themes, and have found much in common. 
He, too, has enjoyed his informal visit with 
us, entering with equal readiness into its va- 
rying phases of serious intercourse and social 
relaxation ; and now as he goes back to New 
England I am confident that he carries with 
him some pleasant and emollient memories, 
which will make his business harness easier 
to wear. Every active business man and 
toiler in the constant routine of duties should 
thus quit his customary environment, not 
once a year, but as often as he feels the joints 
of his harness wearing into the fiber of his 
mind and soul. He should hie himself to 
some quiet haunt of Nature, where she makes 

86 



SEASIDE SCENES AND THOUGHTS 

her careful toilet in her choicest vestments, 
unmindful of any observing eye; or he should 
seek some friendly circle where kind ap- 
preciation and hearty sympathy are eager to 
welcome him, and where he can bathe his 
jaded spirits in the rich fount of human 
affection. Both his work and the world he 
serves will gain by this quickening and re- 
freshing of his vital forces. May the time 
come when one -half of the world will be 
wilHng to change places with the other 
half, so that each in turn may have a glad 
vacation ! 

August 25. — The sea was unusually placid 
this morning, under the soothing influence 
of a northwest wind blowing all night. The 
tide was well on the ebb, and the waves 
appeared to have force enough for only a 
moderate uplift, their final touch upon the 
beach seeming but a mere caress. Two 
ghostly sails glided noiselessly along the 
horizon as if they feared to be seen and 
questioned; even the lusty night- wind had 
so far calmed its temper or fulfilled its pur- 
pose that it was now speaking to the sea in 
mild and friendly tones. Over all this 

87 



SEASIDE SCENES AND THOUGHTS 
scene the blue sky was gently brooding, while 
to it the rising sun was giving the new day's 
silent greeting. I found my own mood in 
keeping with the general environment. I 
felt languid and pensive. Thoughts and 
memories were crowding upon me, sinking 
my mental tone into the minor key. I 
steered clear of every straggler on the beach, 
almost resenting his presence there. I 
wanted to be severely soHtary. I wanted 
the subdued scene all to myself, with no 
other eye or ear to witness or regard it than 

my own. 

How strange is the weather of the soul! 
More strange is it than that of the material 
world. There are no skies so dark as those 
which sometimes cloud the human mind, 
no storms so fearful as those which sometimes 
rage in the human breast, no floods so en- 
gulfing as those of human emotions, no 
cold so paralyzing or heat so withering as 
the human sense of despair and loneliness; 
and on the other hand there is no silence 
in Nature so profound as the peace which 
sometimes visits the human heart, no out- 
ward scene of beauty so enticing as that 

88 



SEASIDE SCENES AND THOUGHTS 

which sometimes dazzles the human imag- 
ination. The microcosm contains in minia- 
ture all which the macrocosm holds; and 
one thing more, — a being torn with pangs 
and thrilled with pleasures! 

August 26. — Fred had a breakfast party 
here this morning of half-a-dozen girls, 
all of whom sat down to the table in their 
bathing suits. Later they joined the great 
group of bathers. They were all jolly and 
interesting specimens of that type so much 
admired and sought after by young men. 

— Poor, contemptible Harry Thaw! He 
is both pitiable and despicable. The press 
of the whole country is swelling its columns 
with an account of his antics, which titillate 
one half of its readers and disgust the other 
half. What a pity that when so many valu- 
able lives are being destroyed every year on 
land and sea, through the folly of man or the 
brutality of Nature, this graceless, hare- 
brained creature couldn't be included among 
them ! He may not be crazy, but he is worse 
than that so far as his social status is con- 
cerned: he is a hopelessly worthless ne'er- 
do-well. Never in any manner or degree 

89 



SEASIDE SCENES AND THOUGHTS 

has he justified his right to exist; never has 
he earned a meal or a night's repose— and 
yet he has had nearly one hundred thousand 
dollars to squander annually on himself and 
feed fat his caprices and passions. He is a 
human dereHct floating on hfe's sea, a peril 
to all useful craft. How proud his Maker 
must be of him, and of millions more of his 
vermicular species !— What is that I hear in 
dissent of this? His Maker didn't make him, 
you say? Logically then perhaps there is no 
Maker, no Creator, at all. Let us hope so; 
for then the responsibility for producing such 
poor human stuff as the Harry Thaws is our 
own, and the duty is upon us to permit no 
more such miserable by-products to escape 
from our social loins. 

August 27.— It is useless for any one to 
think or to try to get out of Nature more 
than he puts into her, to find in her more 
or other than he has in himself. He can- 
not see anything exquisitely beautiful or 
magnificently grand in any of Nature's as- 
pects unless he has in his own nature a 
sense and keen perception of these quali- 
ties. The onlooker upon Nature must pos- 

90 



SEASIDE SCENES AND THOUGHTS 

sess the poetic, the romantic vein, or she 
will reveal to him nothing but her dynamic 
and static character. If he has a soul in 
himself, he will find a soul in her; if he con- 
sists only of a rattling frame of bones, he 
will discover in her nought but a gigantic 
skeleton. In other words, without imagina- 
tion, — the faculty to create what doesn't 
really exist or is only objectively hinted, — 
we stand before Nature practically blind 
and deaf. 

It has long been my conviction that the 
highest form of religion is to be found in the 
capacity to enjoy and interpret Nature 
through the aid of a vivid and cultivated 
imagination. I do not speak now of ethics, 
which is commonly regarded as a part of 
religion, but which has no necessary con- 
nection with it, since ethics properly means 
the science of right conduct toward man, 
wholly irrespective of any supposititious 
being called God. An atheist or a pantheist 
can be, and often is, guided in all his social 
relations by as high ethical considerations 
as any theist or Christian ever was. I have 
in mind at present that exalted form of re- 

91 



SEASIDE SCENES AND THOUGHTS 

ligion which such so-called materialists as 
Thomas H. Huxley, John Tyndall, and Ernst 
Haeckel could and did accept, — the ability 
and the disposition to hold a poetic con- 
ception of the universe, to see in its stu- 
pendous mystery elements of beauty and 
sublimity as well as of terror and of gloom, 
which kindle in the imaginative beholder 
not only breathless wonder, but a kind of 
reverent awe. 

I am sometimes commiserated that in 
these closing years of my life I have no "faith 
in God." Bless your kind hearts, Mr. and 
Mrs. and Miss Pityme! I am far better 
off than you are; for my theological system is 
not so bareribbed as to have only one God 
to celebrate, — a lonesome, solitary, unsoci- 
able, indefinite God, whom you call the In- 
finite and Eternal, and who therefore is by 
his very nature the inconceivable, the un- 
thinkable, the unknown and unknowable 
God, whom (as the Bible says) "by searching 
cannot be found out." Like the poetic 
and highly imaginative old Greeks, I have 
many Gods. The universe, this world, is 
full of them, all alive with them, all revealing 

92 



SEASIDE SCENES AND THOUGHTS 

themselves to me wherever I turn my eyes. 
I cannot escape from them; they beset me 
behind and before, and all around. When I 
walk here on the beach, the ocean, Neptune, 
is my God, majestic and mighty; I bow down 
before him, I hail and adore him. When 
the stormy wind blows, and Old Ocean feels 
and submits to its powerful sway, then 
iEolus is my God, and commands my homage. 
When the sun appears, and drives the wind 
away on a chariot of clouds, and bids the 
sea be still, then Apollo is my God, and I 
turn toward him my adoring gaze. When 
the night blots out the day, and the moon 
leads in her starry host, then Nocturne and 
Diana have me in thrall, their solemn dark- 
ness and chastened light filling me with 
reverence and with awe. When Venus is 
the evening star, and her light "so holy 
shines," then she is my Queen of the heavens, 
and I am thrilled and subdued by the pure 
radiance of her supernal beauty. When I 
am in the meadows and the fields, where 
the grass and the corn are growing, and the 
running brooks are murmuring, and the 
singing birds are mating, then 

93 



SEASIDE SCENES AND THOUGHTS 

"Universal Pan, 
Knit with the Graces and the Hours in dance," 

is my God, and my spirits leap with delight 
to his piping reeds. When I am among the 
mountains, the hills, the darkened woods, 
the shimmering lakes, the industrious rivers, 
then a host of lesser deities — nymphs, naiads, 
oreads, elfins, fairies — swarm about me and 
fill my mind with fascinated thoughts. 
Wherever beauty, grace, grandeur, mystery 
reign, there I find my gods and goddesses 
appealing to me. 

This Religion of Nature is the true catholic 
religion. Moreover, so far as I have been 
able to observe, it is the only religion which 
discards cant and is free of the tendency to 
make its devotees either cowards, syco- 
phants, dogmatists, or hypocrites, and which 
does not date its beginning from the birth 
of some man or the publication of some 
man-made book. 

August 5 J. — For the first time in my ante- 
breakfast walks Old Ocean denied me the 
use of the beach this morning. He was occu- 
pying it himself. For several days now we 
have been having a series of high tides, in 

94 



SEASIDE SCENES AND THOUGHTS 

which the mad waves have in places crashed 
to the foot of the high embankment of Ocean 
Avenue, causing some of the campers be- 
tween the boardwalk and the avenue to 
"fold their tents like the Arabs/' and hastily 
not "silently steal away." I was driven to 
the boardwalk for my morning stroll, since 
otherwise I should have been engulfed to 
the knees in disdainful brine. Coming oppo- 
site the Sindia I stopped to see how she was 
sustaining the violent attacks of the ocean. 
Her steel ribs and her one standing tall mast 
were holding out sullenly against their enemy; 
but, as if enraged by their valiant resistance, 
he was voiding his insolent spume at them, 
spouting it twenty feet into the air. Spying 
here what seemed yet to be a dry area on the 
beach, and thinking that it might prove for 
several minutes to remain immune from the 
tide, I descended to it the better to watch the 
unequal battle between the Sindia and 
the sea. I intended to keep a wary eye all 
the time upon the advancing tide, ready to 
flee at any moment when it became immi- 
nent; but in my interest in the wrecked ves- 
sel I forgot self-interest, and in this unwary 

95 



SEASIDE SCENES AND THOUGHTS 

mood I suddenly found myself standing 
ankle-deep in water. For about sixty sec- 
onds the old gentleman performed some lively 
motions in withdrawing from his damp sur- 
roundings to the dry security of the board- 
walk, where he emptied his shoes and wrung 
out his stockings — and decided to go home 
to breakfast. 



IV. 

September j. — To-day we have had an ex- 
cursion party of five to Cape May, with two 
automobiles to carry us. Ottilie drove one, 
and our visitor Lilian the other. Judging 
from my own experience with chauffeurs of 
both sexes, I should say that women drivers 
can be as competent and conscientious as 
men drivers. To-day I rode with Lilian, and 
she handled her fine car with a practiced 
hand. As I have remarked before, there are 
many dangerous railroad crossings hereabout, 
and it takes an alert eye and ear to pass them 
in safety. At my time of Hfe one needn't 
mind being killed, if it could be done out- 
right and suddenly with neatness and dis- 

96 



SEASIDE SCENES AND THOUGHTS 

patch, for in that case one would have no 
opportunity to regret it; but to have one's 
body bruised, mangled, and perhaps divari- 
cated completely — that is another and de- 
cidedly objectionable fortuity. However, 
both Ottilie and Lilian have passed and re- 
passed these danger-points many times, and 
I feel reasonably safe with either as a driver. 

Fred was in our car, its one seat being 
amply broad enough to accommodate three 
amiable persons quite cosily. And we were 
all amiable, Fred especially so, for this is her 
birthday, and this is her birthday party. 
She is so young that it is safe to tell her age 
out loud. She is just twenty to-day— 
"sweet and twenty," as Tennyson sings. 
But though she is only twenty, she "acted 
like sixty." She laughed and gurgled and 
sang, and she would have danced if she could 
have balanced herself in the rapidly moving 
car; failing to do that, she kept her feet 
moving to her own music. I laughed with 
her, for my memory helped me to know how 
delicious it is to be only twenty. 

I saw more of Cape May on this excursion 
than I did on a previous one, for we drove 

97 



SEASIDE SCENES AND THOUGHTS 

along the whole length of the avenue run- 
ning parallel with the magnificent beach and 
the extensive boardwalk. One end of this 
avenue is far less courtly than the other, 
being of a popular nature in every respect. 
If the milords and miladies practice social ex- 
clusiveness at the court end, hoi polloi retort 
with disdainful heels at the other — and so 
the social balance between democracy and 
aristocracy is preserved even at so haughty 
a resort as Cape May. 

September 4. — At the end of my down- 
stretch on the beach this morning I divagated 
from my usual return to make an informal 
call on ''the mother and the child." The 
mother, when she herself was a child, was 
one of my dear little-girl friends. I used to 
hold her on my knee, tell her "a story," and 
sing to her my little-girl song of "Kittie 
Klyde." I have carried her on my back 
upstairs to her bed, and been sweetly re- 
warded with a good-night kiss. Now that 
charming child is the charming mother of a 
most winsome boy baby, a year and a half 
old. This morning I was permitted to be 
present when "little Billy" was prepared for 

98 



SEASIDE SCENES AND THOUGHTS 

his bath, to take the disrobed cherub in 
my arms and carry him to his tub, thence to 
convey him back in a warm blanket to his 
bedroom, where he was robed for his morning 
nap, and then to put him in his crib and see 
him close his eager hps around his milk- 
bottle, waving a good-by to me with his 
little hand as his eyehds slowly drooped in 
thorough contentment with the situation. 
It was as ''holy" a scene as any I saw in 
European cathedrals. 

For many years I have been an inconspicu- 
ous protagonist of the equal civil and politi- 
cal rights of women with men — not because 
they were women, but because they were 
human beings, and because I believe that all 
mankind should, so far as practicable, possess 
equal privileges and opportunities for indi- 
vidual improvement and social service. I am 
not so fatuous as to beHeve that everything 
will be "perfectly lovely" in the State or 
Nation when woman suffrage is everywhere 
achieved. Women are no better than men, 
and men no better than women. They are 
only different — different in capacities and 
powers; and because they are different, both 

99 



SEASIDE SCENES AND THOUGHTS 
are needed to do all the work of civilizing 
mankind in private and in public life. But 
while I am in favor of encouraging every 
woman to choose the nature of her work, and 
where and how it shall be done-j^st like 
men in this respect-I believe that it will 
prove to be only the exceptional woman who 
will choose pubHcity rather than privacy as 
her sphere. Considering her sex capacity, I 
am decidedly of the opinion that woman is 
better fitted to serve society in the home than 
on the hustings or in the chair of state, and 
that the truly feminine woman will always 
more rejoice to be a happy wife and mother 
than to be a proud governor or president. 
And to this end I believe that one of woman's 
rights should be the same freedom to ask the 
man she loves to be her husband, as it is now 
the man's to ask the woman he loves to be 
his wife. Why not, pray? Is there anything 
in the radical nature of either which de- 
mands that this privilege should belong to 
the one more than to the other? No! the 
objection to sex equality in this one particular 
Hes in the stupid, brutal, conventional preju- 
dice that man in his intercourse with woman 



100 



SEASIDE SCENES AND THOUGHTS 

should be the sole initiator and dominator. 
I believe that there are as many bachelor 
girls and women in this country to-day who 
would be glad to become wives and mothers, 
as there are ambitious ones who are panting 
for a pubKc career. Open the door of choice 
to both, I say; and let us have done with 
man's exclusive sexual as well as political 
rights. Let every year be leap year. 

I have been moved to these last remarks 
by the call which I made on ''the mother and 
the child," and by the fact that it has been 
my blessed and sanctified privilege to have 
had a beautiful mother and a noble wife. 

September 5. — On my beach walk this 
morning I came upon a group of four little 
girls playing busily in the soft sand which the 
tide had not yet reached. It was booming 
in, and the girls knew it, and they were mak- 
ing the most of their present exemption from 
its invasion. As I came opposite to them I 
saw that they were sketching pictures of 
houses in the sand and writing names under 
each. As a rule I find children disposed to 
be affable with me, and so I stopped to 
speak to this child quartet. 

lOI 



SEASIDE SCENES AND THOUGHTS 

"What nice houses you have made!" I 
said. "Are you going to live in them? If 
you are, I think I should like to come and 
make you a visit." 

They all stopped work and looked at me 
amusedly. "I am a grandpa," I continued, 
"and have three small grandchildren who 
are spending their summer by the sea. I 
wonder if they are building sand-houses like 
these, and if they have made a room in them 
for me." 

Now they all came nearer to me, and one 
— a blue-eyed, brown-haired girl — asked, "Do 
your grandchildren live in Ocean City?" 

"No ; they are hundreds of miles from here, 
up in Massachusetts." 

"What are their names?" she asked. 

"I will tell you their names if you all will 
tell me yours." 

"There they are," she said, pointing to 
the houses in the sand. 

I read the names aloud, — "Elizabeth, Mi- 
randa, Susan, Flossie. But which is which?" 
I asked, as I pointed to each name and girl. 

She made this all plain to me, and it turned 
out that the smallest girl's name was Flossie, 

I02 



SEASIDE SCENES AND THOUGHTS 

who had been busy putting on her stockings 
and shoes, and had now just taken her place 
in the line. She had black eyes and an abun- 
dance of flossy dark hair. 

''Well, my grandchildren's names are 
Ruth, Alec, and Professor Highbrow." 

They all laughed when I spoke the last 
name, and Elizabeth said, "What did his 
folks name him that for? " 

"They didn't. I gave him that name my- 
self, because he has such a broad, high fore- 
head, such big round eyes, and because he 
thinks so much. His real name is Barrett, 
but he likes to be called Professor." 

Then Miranda asked, "What does he think 
about?" 

"Oh, I fancy it must be about the universe," 
and I waved my hand in a big circle over my 
head and looked up into the sky. 

"That is a funny thing to think about,'* 
she; said, looking at me a little wonderingly, 
and the others evidently agreed mth her. 

"Yes, the universe is funny when we see 
it in a cage of chattering, tricksy monkeys, 
or in two kittens playing together and rolling 
over each other; but it is wonderful too, 

103 



SEASIDE SCENES AND THOUGHTS 

mighty wonderful, when we see it in the big 
ocean or the starry skies; and because the 
universe is both funny and wonderful is the 
reason, I reckon, why Professor Highbrow 
thinks about it so much." 

''How old is he?" asked Httle Flossie. 
''Six years last May," I repHed, and was 
about to ask how old she was when— 

"Look out! there's a big wave coming!" 
shrieked Miranda, and the four of them who 
stood facing me while my back was toward 
the tide, of whose stern purpose I had become 
oblivious, made a dash for Ocean Avenue, 
shouting back to me, "Good-by! we're going 
home to breakfast." 

By remarkable octogenarian celerity I 
escaped a serious immersion, and went home 
to my breakfast. 

September 5.— Water is a great, patient, 
and elegant artificer. I had some dim^ per- 
ception of this fact when I was a boy, sitting 
on the top of a big rock to which I had waded 
through a brawling forest stream which had 
its source in the uplands far in the rear. This 
was one of my favorite resorts in those happy 
days of dreamy childhood. I used to wonder 

104 



SEASIDE SCENES AND THOUGHTS 

how long it had taken the water to round off 
the corner of that slippery old bowlder and to 
polish the smaller stones which were shining 
up to me from the bottom of the brook, — 
the latter just the right size, to my thinking, 
to have been put into David's sling. Now in 
my old age, as I walk on this ocean beach 
every morning, I have a new and larger lesson 
of the power of water to shape and fashion 
things with which it comes in contact. 

Fire and water have been the chief archi- 
tects of this planet. They have builded its 
mountains and spread out its plains; they 
have molded the size and form of its conti- 
nents, and divided and distributed its islands; 
they have scooped out immense pits for its 
oceans, smaller ones for its lakes, and plowed 
troughs for its rivers. These great things 
they have done, and the little things they 
have not left undone. Some of the little 
things which water alone has accomplished 
I have repeatedly been delighted to observe 
in my beach walks. The incoming and out- 
going tides work their fantastic will on this 
sandy shore, and every now and then I have 
to stop and consider what they have done. 



SEASIDE SCENES AND THOUGHTS 
One morning I discovered a succession of 
niches or recesses neatly scooped out in the 
beach, containing a great variety of nicely 
delineated forms of leaves, trailing vines, 
flowers in bud and blossom, scarfs, scrolls, 
banners, etc. In some of these niches there 
was a mass of such fine, delicate, web-like 
tracery that I had to get down on my knee 
to examine it. They were patterns which 
would please and puzzle any woman to imi- 
tate. In one large niche I was astonished to 
find the huge form of a man with a mon- 
strous head, shaggy hair and beard, arms, 
but no legs. It seemed as though I had come 
upon a basso-relievo of Neptune himself, which 
the sculptor had not had time to finish. And 
all this was ''the froHc architecture " of water 
working only with the evasive material of 

sand! 

September p.— Thermometers and barome- 
ters! What a change! The mercury has 
plunged from its high perch of 90 yesterday 
down to 72 to-day, and the change came like 
the snap of a stage-driver's whiplash. I don't 
like it. I would rather sweat than shiver, 

any time. 

106 



SEASIDE SCENES AND THOUGHTS 

September lo, — To-day gives us even colder 
weather than yesterday's. The mercury this 
afternoon looks ashamed of itself at 66. 

Notwithstanding the cold spell which has 
come so suddenly upon us, my beach walk 
this morning was glorious in its setting and its 
effects. The sun was shining splendidly, the 
sea was blue and calm, the air was pure and 
bracing, the beach was clean and firm, my 
spirits were nimble and elastic, my pace was 
quick and striding, and I had the scene all 
to myself, with the benedictory sky brooding 
over it and me. For the time being the whole 
universe seemed friendly to me, and I looked 
it in the eye without fear and without shame. 
I felt "all there," as the English say, and the 
cosmic sense was supreme. 

September ii. — There are three things which 
every man must have enough of or die. Those 
three things are food, clothing, and shelter; 
and before he is willing to die for the lack of 
them he will fight for them with the clamor- 
ing tongue, or with such weapons as he can 
lay his hands to. We are none of us respon- 
sible for our birth. We did not ask to be 
born, and our consent was not secured to that 

107 



SEASIDE SCENES AND THOUGHTS 

event taking place. Once here, however, we 
have a natural right to be taken care of, — 
that is, to be given a good chance to grow and 
to fulfil all our native functions. If our par- 
ents cannot or will not do this for us, then 
society, which allowed our parents to beget 
us, is bound by all honorable obligations to 
do it. If somebody doesn't do this for us, 
and do it alertly and adequately, or if death 
doesn't interpose to squelch our rightful 
claim, look out for trouble! for it is sure to 
come. 

The cry of the new-born infant for this 
human care is but the initial slogan of that 
great army of the hungry, the naked, the 
houseless, which has tramped up and down 
the earth ever since the phrase "human so- 
ciety" was coined. Allow all which we must 
allow for constitutional laziness, shiftlessness, 
incompetence, and degeneracy in the pro- 
duction of human woe and suffering, we still 
have to admit that there are millions of men 
and women who by no fault of their own have 
been conscripted into the army of those who 
lack the bare necessities of life, and who be- 
cause of this have been driven to crime or 

1 08 



SEASIDE SCENES AND THOUGHTS 

suicide. Not alone are ambition, vainglory, 
and a lust for gain responsible for war and 
all its horrors; those who feel the tightening 
grip of social injustice are also eager for it, 
because they feel that in a rough-and-tumble 
conflict with society they stand some chance 
of getting out of it better terms for them- 
selves. The ferocious tiger who has had his 
ample supply of bloody meat is as unpreda- 
cious an animal as his congener, the petted 
household cat; so, too, the man who knows 
that his three daily meals are reasonably sure 
of regular continuance, and who feels fairly 
prosperous and happy, is a hopeless subject 
for the enlisting officer to tackle or for the 
walking delegate to befuddle. He is burning 
with no sense of wrong. He doesn't want 
to fight or strike. He wants peace and plenty 
of it, with his neighbor and all mankind. 

Let those who are so desirous to Christian- 
ize the world and to put a stop to war, think 
on these things. You can't make a good man 
out of a starving one, or a peaceable man out 
of one who has no work and no wages. The 
belly's rights are prior to those of the soul or 
the conscience. If any well-disposed and 

109 



SEASIDE SCENES AND THOUGHTS 

well-qualified individual cannot live in com- 
fort and happiness on this earth because 
somebody is crowding him and filching from 
him, then hatred, strife, and war are inevitable 
and even righteous conditions. Neither gos- 
pel nor peace tracts will help the situation; 
only a scientific economic system which will 
guarantee to every man his due and special 
favor to none, will do it. Men and brethren 
all! let us think on these things and get wise. 

I think I should hardly have been led into 
the foregoing reflections had I not all this 
summer been observing the throng of babies, 
children, and young folks on this beach, and 
wondering what their future was to be — 
whether it was to prove that their birth into 
this life was a happy or a calamitous event 
for themselves and others. 

September ij. — The aspect and condition of 
the beach are almost as changeful as those 
of the sea. Sometimes I find it soft and 
spongy, disagreeable to walk on; at other 
times it is hard, dry, and as smooth as a floor. 
Sometimes I find it in wretched disorder, lit- 
tered with clotted heaps and long rows of wet 
seaweed, slimy foam, piles and piles of shells 

no 



SEASIDE SCENES AND THOUGHTS 

little and big, mangled bodies of dead fish, 
broken spars, remnants of wooden buckets, 
and once the ribs of a wrecked row-boat; and 
perhaps the next morning all these unsightly 
objects have vanished, and the beach from 
end to end is as spick and span as a neat 
housewife's kitchen in the afternoon. Some 
mornings, when the tide is high, I stop and 
delightedly watch the thin, receding waves go 
sliding and rippling down the strand; again, 
on other mornings when the tide is well out, 
when the air is wrung dry of its humidity 
and the wind is gusty, with equal delight I 
pause to observe the loose sand swept along 
the smooth beach in little flounces and stream- 
ers, as new-fallen dry snow sometimes drifts 
over the frozen surface of winter's earlier 
deposits. Never a morning but I find some 
interesting change in the littoral, something 
new to note and ponder on. The Atlantic 
Ocean has to do a lot of housecleaning for 
three continents, to say nothing of number- 
less islands, large and small. The amount 
of discard which it has to receive and dispose 
of from all these is beyond computation. No 
eight-hour day would sufiice for the task, but 

III 



SEASIDE SCENES AND THOUGHTS 

every one of the twenty-four hours is needed 
to do the job. 

September 14. — We have been glad to-day 
to have a fire on the hearth, and all of us have 
courted it with decided signs of satisfaction. 
This is the first time this season when we have 
needed such a material comforter. Yet is fire 
only material in its nature? Some of the 
ancients thought that it possessed a soul, and 
that it originally was brought from heaven. 
Beyond question, fire has warmed not only 
the body of man, but it has kindled into 
flame many of the finest emotions of his heart. 
*' While I was musing, the fire burned," says 
the old psalmist. He might better have said, 
"While the fire burned, I mused; " for though 
the fire was not the cause of his musing, it 
surely was the occasion of it and a real aux- 
iliary thereto. This every one knows who 
has ever sat alone before an open fire and 
found himself ''rapt in nameless reverie." 

A home without a fireside is almost un- 
thinkable. No hole in the floor called a 
"register," no upright ornamented thing 
called a "radiator," can be the nucleus of a 
family circle. The old New England fireside, 

112 



SEASIDE SCENES AND THOUGHTS 

before stoves and furnaces were introduced, 
what a precious and sacred place it was ! As 
the night's shadows thickened over wood and 
wold, the entire family gathered in front of 
the spacious, yawning chimney which breathed 
out its genial warmth to the whole circle, 
making them regardless of the bitter cold 
without and the wild raving of a winter's 
storm. The long, high-backed settle was 
drawn up in front of the fire, on which the 
children ranged themselves according to 
affinity, for in a large family every sister is 
apt to have a favorite brother, and every 
brother a favorite sister. The mother sits 
in her chair near the head of the settle, with 
her knitting in her hands and that lurking 
smile in her eyes so easily evoked, while the 
sire and the grandsire occupy their favorite 
nooks at opposite chimney corners. Some 
apples are roasting on the hearth, emitting 
from time to time resentful little puffs as 
their rosy skins are cracked by the heat, and 
a bowl of nuts prepared for the occasion is 
passed along the line of children. Perhaps a 
story is told by the aged grandsire, culled 
from his experience as frontiersman and as a 

"3 



SEASIDE SCENES AND THOUGHTS 

soldier in the Revolutionary army; all the 
children have heard it before, yet they listen 
to and enjoy it the second, third, or even 
fourth time as much as at the first. Perhaps 
a song is sung by the eldest sister in her clear, 
strong, and pleasing though imtrained voice, 
her favorites being — 

"The rose that all are praising 
Is not the rose for me" — 

and "Ye banks and braes o' bonny Doon;'' 
or perhaps the grown-up son sings the last 
new song he has learned, "The Sexton," — a 
song which his mother likes, albeit she al- 
ways gets a Kttle "teary round the lashes" 
as he sings it, the sexton having taken from 
her some of her own flock. Perhaps at the 
close of the evening a hymn is sung by the 
whole family, and then the good-night kisses 
are sure to be given as the circle breaks up. 
Ah, one is almost reconciled to being very 
old when one has such a memory as this to 
carry about in one's mind! 

September 75. — The mercury stood at 60 
degrees and the west wind blew strong in 
my face as I took my walk this morning. 

114 



SEASIDE SCENES AND THOUGHTS 

I have allowed neither wind nor weather to 
keep me off the beach any morning now for 
three whole months, and the health, pleasure, 
and inspiration these saunterings by the sea 
have given me are a sufficient reward for all 
effort at early rising. My walks are now more 
solitary than ever. It is seldom that I meet 
or pass any other stroller on the beach. 
Fully two-thirds of the summer sojourners 
here have gone back to their homes. I do 
not mourn much their absence, except in the 
case of the babies and the children. These 
I loved, and with them I have had some 
pleasant passages, — a smile, a nod, a wave of 
the hand, perhaps a word or two. May love 
and safety and happiness be their future lot ! 
For a few more days I shall linger here, and 
then I too shall become fugacious. 

September i6. — I have found that a fairly 
good rule to follow in one's life is this: Try 
always to do what is right, what appears to 
one to be right at the time, and then never 
make any excuses for failure beyond simply 
saying, "I am sorry." The theological 
virtue of repentance is no virtue at all. It 
is a vice. It needlessly abases the self- 

115 



SEASIDE SCENES AND THOUGHTS 

accuser, and denies to him that degree of self- 
respect necessary to the upbuilding of char- 
acter. An abject and groveling abasement 
of one's self before an imagined Being whom 
we are supposed to have offended, is as un- 
complimentary to the presumed might and 
majesty of that Being as it is demoralizing 
to ourselves. I have heard men in prayer call 
themselves by opprobrious names which 
they would indignantly resent if applied to 
them by their neighbors. I once heard a 
clergyman quote the following lines in a 
prayer he was making for the "salvation" of 
himself and flock, — 

"Can such a worthless worm as I, 
Who sometimes am afraid to die, 
Be found at Thy right hand? " — 

and I mentally responded, "It is certainly 
to be hoped not, for if such a ^worthless 
worm' as you are should be found at the 
right hand, it will surely make the left hand 
a more desirable quarter." This is a kind of 
religious demeanor disgraceful in the eye of 
heaven and of earth. The only being whom 
we really can harm or offend is man, and when 

ii6 



SEASIDE SCENES AND THOUGHTS 

we have injured him — be *'him" our fellow 
or ourself — a gentlemanly apology, a sincere 
desire never to do so again, and reparation 
so far as practicable, is all which self-respect 
or social ethics requires of us. We cannot 
always do right even if we try to, for besides 
our own shortsightedness there are many 
limitations in the very nature of things to our 
power either to do right or wrong. The most 
which can be demanded of any one in this 
weirdly precarious life, is the constant cul- 
tivation of both the desire and the will to 
do all the good one can and as little harm as 
possible. A clear head, a warm heart, and 
a ready hand are the supreme requisites to 
this end. 

September ly. — When the tide is booming 
in it often sweeps up on the beach swarms of 
little fishes, some of whom find it difficult to 
turn about in time to take advantage of the 
receding wave and thus avoid being stranded. 
'Tis amusing yet pitiful to watch their frantic 
efforts at self -recovery, and I always hasten 
to their assistance whenever I see that they 
need it. I have noticed that the small boys 
here have not always been so considerate. 

117 



SEASIDE SCENES AND THOUGHTS 

They have waded in with tin pails in their 
hands and scooped up these finny midgets, 
and emptied them, water and all, into the deep 
pitholes they had dug in the sand, pleasing 
themselves with thus having a private aqua- 
rium of their own. Of course the fish soon die 
in consequence of this ruthless sequestration, 
and I have lamented their sad fate. But I 
have reflected that these boys after all were 
no more pitiless than Nature herself, who 
gives over these minnows in countless num- 
bers, even in their native element, as prey to 
their larger species. It is doubtful if man in 
his most malicious moods has ever outdone 
Nature in ferocity and cruelty. 

September i8. — ^At lo o'clock this forenoon 
Ottilie and I started for Atlantic City in the 
Regal, making the distance — some forty-five 
miles — in a little less than two hours, thread- 
ing on our line of travel Tuckahoe, May's 
Landing, Pleasantville, and several small 
villages. The roads for the most part were 
in prime condition, and, barring a few curves, 
as straight as an arrow. We seemed to fly 
rather than roll, and the exhilaration of it all 
was tingling to the nerves. Ottilie says she 

ii8 



SEASIDE SCENES AND THOUGHTS 

likes to have me for a passenger because I 
don't bother her by talking to her. Yes, I 
know better than to keep my mouth open 
when I am whizzing through the air at that 
rate, inviting all the Jersey road microbes to 
come in and feel at home. 

Atlantic City, like Ocean City, is on an 
island, and it is the most popular seaside 
resort on this coast, apparently being very 
prosperous and flourishing. This is my third 
or fourth visit to the place, and once I so- 
journed here for a couple of weeks. I can't 
say that I like Atlantic City. It appeals to 
the senses, but not to the soul. It impresses 
me as noisy, showy, and fast — indeed, as 
distinctly spectacular and sensational. It is 
a fruitful field for policemen and private 
detectives. I much prefer the quieter, safer, 
and more orderly Ocean City, where babies, 
children, maidens, and mothers play, frivol, 
and rest all in peace and cozy security. 
Returning we came through the pleasant 
village of Northfield, where there is a fine 
i8-hole golf ground and an equally fine club- 
house. Ocean City has no golf links within 
convenient distance. 

119 



SEASIDE SCENES AND THOUGHTS 

September ig. — I have ''had my picture 
taken." I thought I wouldn't go away from 
Ocean City, where I have been so well and 
so content, without seeing just how I look 
as the result of it all. As I never shave or 
go a-courting, I don't spend much of my time 
looking in my mirror. I prefer to study other 
faces than my own. Besides, a mirror doesn't 
give one the same impression of one's self 
that a photograph gives. The latter is 
generally a distinct surprise to the sitter. 
In looking at it he feels as if he were being 
introduced to himself for the first time, and 
he isn't quite sure whether he likes the new 
face or not. The photograph shows us how 
we look to others, while the mirror shows us 
how we look to ourselves. That is the dif- 
ference between them, and it isn't always easy 
to tell which is the counterfeit presentment. 
Having secured this picture, and the taking 
of another being most unlikely, I think I will 
paste it into my Diary, that my grandchildren 
may have it to look at when the original is 
no longer present with them. I wonder if it 
will tell them ''a story" as they stand ques- 
tioningly before it ! 

I20 



SEASIDE SCENES AND THOUGHTS 

September 21. — The last tenter on the beach 
has departed. He — or they, for there were 
two of them — left yesterday afternoon. In 
the morning, as I walked along the beach, I 
saw them come out of their tent carrying a 
bushel basket between them which was full 
of soiled dishes. Both were clad in bathing 
suits, and setting down the basket on the 
shore they waded into the water up to their 
knees, each carrying a handful of plates, cups, 
and saucers, which they proceeded to wash 
by repeated immersion in the convenient sea, 
using their hands for dish-cloth and making 
renewed trips back and forth until all the 
contents of the basket had been attended 
to. ''Doing your week's dish-washing, aren't 
you?" I said. They grinned, and claimed 
that it was the collection of only twenty-four 
hours. ''Well," I added, "I know by experi- 
ence what camping out is. It means a lot of 
fun and some bother; but I think the fun 
greatly outweighs the bother. At any rate, 
it is an experience by which we men have a 
first-rate chance to find how nice and handy 
it is to have a woman about the house." 
They grinned again and said, "That's so." 

121 



SEASIDE SCENES AND THOUGHTS 

September 22. — For some time now I have 
been having an early 6 o'clock breakfast 
with Carl, whom business calls away every 
morning to the big city, and who has to rush 
off with Ottilie in her Regal and kiss her 
good-by on his way to the train. These 
early breakfasts redound to me one advantage 
which I may name; that is, they enable me to 
take my pipe along on these beach walks and 
have a good smoke-think near the Sindia. 
None but a sailor or an Irishman, or some 
other fellow whose stomach is lined with an 
equally tough membrane, should smoke a pipe 
save on the physical basis of a substantial 
meal. I have no habit which I hold to but 
in intelHgent consistency with the laws of the 
goddess Hygeia, and so long as I do that all 
pesky reformers are warned off my premises. 

How I have enjoyed these smoke-thinks 
alone with my silent and suffering friend 
Sindia! Enjoyed and sorrowed some, too. 
I have been a worshiper and a wonderer here 
at Nature's altar, in her cathedral domed by 
the sky and organed by the sea. This was 
my enjoyment, deep, high, and thrilling. 
But my sorrow came when I thought that, 

122 



SEASIDE SCENES AND THOUGHTS 

as beneath the Old- World cathedrals many 
dead are buried, so in the depths of this 
ocean spread out before me countless thou- 
sands are wrapped in watery shrouds, help- 
less victims of storm and wreck. Ah, this 
duplex, antithetic character of Nature, — 
beautiful and yet brutal! I am as sensitive 
to the one of these aspects as I am to the 
other. From the heavenly heights of ecstasy 
in the presence of the beautiful I fall into 
the Tartarean depths of anguish at the sight 
and knowledge of suffering. When I recall 
my own extended observation and experi- 
ence, and even more when I con the pages of 
history and reflect that for much of the suffer- 
ing therein recorded Nature alone has been 
responsible, I have to be honest with myself 
and admit that she contradicts too often the 
New Testament to make credible its beauti- 
ful myth of a ''Heavenly Father." 

Just here it may be proper to remark upon 
some of the beautiful lies which the poets tell 
us, when, in addition to being poets, they 
are also sentimental pietists and optimists. 
Not to mention Wordsworth, here is our own 
dear Whittier singing — 

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SEASIDE SCENES AND THOUGHTS 

"I sit beside the silent sea 
And wait the muffled oar, 
Assured no harm can come to me 
On ocean or on shore." 

Now, this is not only melodious poetry, — 
it is delicious sentiment; but is it true? 
Does the experience or the observation of 
the average human being confirm it? The 
other day an innocent and happy lad came 
down from Philadelphia to visit another lad 
in Ocean City. They went in bathing to- 
gether alone, as they had often done before, 
this beach being regarded as an unusually 
safe one for bathers of all ages owing to its 
very gradual sloping seaward. But we had 
previously been having some high tides, and 
when the visiting lad waded out confidently 
into the water he stepped suddenly into a 
deep hole which the furious surf had gullied 
out, and being unable to swim he was 
drowned. His friend did his utmost to 
save him, and nearly lost his own life in 
doing so. The following day the drowned 
boy was carried home to his mother. Did 
"no harm" come to that lad, or to the 
mother who bore him? Did "no harm" 

124 



SEASIDE SCENES AND THOUGHTS 

come to the seven hundred who went to 
their death on the ill-fated Titanic? Did 
^'no harm" come to the countless millions 
who ^'on shore" have perished — at one 
time or another, in one way or another — by 
Nature's own tremendous action? "The 
Eternal Goodness" of which Whittier pipes 
so exquisitely appears often to exhibit a very 
temporary and undependable quality. 
Again, Browning sings — 

"God 's in his heaven: 
All 's right with the world." 

If Robert Browning had ever been a 
thoughtful student of history, he would have 
been convinced that the world has never been 
"all right;" indeed, it many times would 
have seemed to him that the world both 
of man and matter was mighty near being 
all wrong. And if he was an intelligent and 
sympathetic observer of current events in 
his own day, he must have felt that the world 
needed much mending before even he could 
pronounce it "all right." As for God being 
in "his heaven" (wherever that may be), he 
appears often to be so deeply buried in it 

125 



SEASIDE SCENES AND THOUGHTS 

that this afflicted old world goes stumbling on 
in its precarious course without any help 
from him. 

Why cannot the poets write what is true 
as well as what is beautiful, what accords 
with our own every-day experience and ob- 
servation as well as what imagination sug- 
gests? Just as good poetry can be made out 
of facts as out of fiction. 

September 25. — The sea was in a calmer 
mood this morning than I have seen it at 
any time since I began to pace before it. 
No incoming wave was so high that a child 
might not have stepped over it, and the noise 
of its rush and fall was so faint that my dull 
ears were wholly insensible to it. The tide 
was so low that I had ample choice of a path- 
way on the broad strand, where I wandered 
up and down at my wayward will. The 
*'blue urn" was speckless, and the air, 
though sharp, was deliciously pure. When 
I reached the Sindia I found myself in a 
decidedly romantic mood. Yet there was 
nothing human in sight to be romantic with 
or about, — no babies, no children, no lovers. 
I was solus with the new day. Old Ocean, 

126 



SEASIDE SCENES AND THOUGHTS 

and the Sindia. Ahoy there! I have an 
idea. The captain of that ship was a Scotch- 
man. I used to know two or three Scotch 
songs, which I found useful (oh, so many- 
years ago!) in helping to get my own babies 
to sleep. Looking cautiously all about me to 
make sure that I had no critical audience 
to be offended by my performance, I began 
to sing. It took two whole stanzas of a 
pathetic Scotch love-song (besides the sound 
of my own voice) to make me willing to quit 
being romantic, and just do nothing but 
smoke and think. 

September 24. — These two fine lines from 
Emerson — 

"Haughtily the new day- 
Fills his blue urn with fire" — 

came sparkling into my mind as I strode up 
the beach this morning, though the next two 
following — 

''One thought is in the heavens above 
And one in our desire" — 

seemed to me somewhat enveloped in du- 
biety. The "thought in the heavens" must 
have been projected there by the poet's 

127 



SEASIDE SCENES AND THOUGHTS 

own ''desire," since how otherwise could he 
have known what it was? However, it 
sounds well and rounds out the stanza hand- 
somely. The sky was again flawless, un- 
flecked by the least remnant of a cloud. 
Indeed, it was a sky which Italy might be 
proud of, albeit unaccompanied with her 
bland air. The beach was loaded with sea- 
shells, — huge thick beds of them, besides 
long wide rows piled high. Among them I 
noticed two monstrous ''king crabs," shaped 
much like a horseshoe with a long tail to it. 
Another strange sea-animal I saw was some- 
thing over twelve inches long, consisting of a 
series of perfect rings, each distinct from the 
other, but all connected by a small motor 
cord or nerve. What a queer medley of 
population dwells in the sea, and how ruth- 
less it is to their lives and safety! 

September 25. — This is my last day in 
Ocean City, and this my last morning walk 
on its beach. It is hard and smooth as a 
ballroom floor, undisfigured by anything 
save these little white sepulchers of sea- 
animals which once inhabited them with a 
love of even their low form of life. The 

128 



SEASIDE SCENES AND THOUGHTS 

new day is beautiful, and the ocean scene is 
glorious. I have passed many summers by 
the sea, but never before have I come into 
such understanding intimacy with it as dur- 
ing the season now ended. Sympathetically 
I have entered into its various moods and 
aspects, and in so doing it has searched me 
through and through. Mighty and grand 
it is, yet sinister and terrible, — in both these 
particulars truly representing the universe 
of which it is a type. Byron's splendid 
sonnet to the ocean comes to me now, and I 
repeat it aloud as my farewell: — 

''Roll on, thou deep and dark blue ocean, roll! 

Ten thousand fleets sweep over thee in vain. 
Man marks the earth with ruin, but his control 

Stops with the shore. Upon the watery plain 
The wrecks are all thy deed; nor doth remain 

A shadow of man's ravage save his own, 
When for a moment, like a drop of rain, 

He sinks into thy depths with bubbling groan, 
Without a grave, unknell'd, uncoffin'd, and un- 
known." 

Good-by all! I am going home to go to 
school to my grandchildren, and to get 
eightified. 



129 



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